Greg had barely started mentioning a "common atheist misconception" when I knew he was going for the "you think atheists can't do good" thing. It's astonishing how predictably they bring up the same old objections that nobody makes anymore (or never made). Are they really this far behind the current conversation? Are church conversations really this insular and stagnant? Or do apologists like Greg just purposefully toss these easy pitches into the air and knock them out of the park to soothe and impress their audiences? Maybe it's a combination. Like the number of licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll, the world may never know.
I've heard atheists saying these things... when it's theists outright claiming that atheists can't be moral. It's a response to them telling us that. That's probably where he heard it, and again misunderstood the argument and thought it was about a different topic.
They have to know these topics have been disputed and explained many many times. I don't know if they don't understand or if they are just that dishonest.
@Jeff Scott yeah, I’ve heard it too, but not as a response to this argument. An argument that is one of the clearest cases of begging the question I have ever seen. I get a kick out of theists who say, if there were no god, then they would just do whatever they want. Cheat, Steal, Kill .... I have literally heard Ken Hovind (sp?) say this. It always makes me think that these people must be awful human beings. “Boy, I sure would like to rape that lady over there. Too bad God says it’s wrong.” Only, side note, it’s not always wrong according to the Bible.
It's really grown on me. I didn't care for it at first, especially with how clever and catchy the 'Ham and AIGs" theme is. It just seemed too Irish to fit the content, but I kind of like it now.
S Gloobal @S Gloobal Just because you categorically refuse to accept that you have been refuted countless times, does not mean that you have not been refuted countless times.
You got in first, and "YAY!" is all you have to say about this subject? You are smart enough to operate a computer or cell phone, and smart enough to watch this video, and the first, and ONLY, thing that comes to mind is "YAY!"? I actually find THAT immoral, and sad. I may agree with you, or disagree with you, but we'll never know. Sad. Just sad.
BTFOOMNY unless you know the context of their “Yay”. How can you determine the morality of it? Perhaps “yay” simply refers to “yay, someone I fallow put out a new video”. To clams a persons joy is immoral, without knowing the context is presumptuous of you. In fact, to be first in the comments. Usually means one has not watched the video before commenting. So the “Yay” can reasonably be assumed to not be a direct response to the exact content of the video. But more likely the existence of the video itself.
@@caligo7918 But then, he would, wouldn't he? Of course, if you read the Bible, you'll find verses where he explicitly claims to be responsible for all evil, so ...
@S Gloobal That doesn't follow. And indeed, I don't believe in an "ultimate eternal source of good" (whatever that even means) _or_ "evil" in the religious sense (as opposed to a secular meaning more or less like "any malevolent moral actor doing sufficiently bad stuff", with good and bad as defined by Paulogia, and malevolent just another term describing that his goals and/or methods are sufficiently far toward what I consider "bad"). And in any case, apologists always claim that "there are objective morals", but I don't see how they can arrive at their conclusion unless they presuppose God (in which case I'd still object that that's just one more subjective definition, but that's a different argument). I can certainly see no sign of that "objective morality" in the world I see, only a vast number of differing moral systems. The few generalities are not enough to define a moral system, and in any case, are trivially easy to explain with evolution. Hell, I can see how my own moral system changes throughout my life (not dramatically, but still).
6:22 I don't believe for a second that Hitchens would have said "I can read anything just as good as you can read" for two reasons. First, he would have had a far better response to such an inane scenario, and second, his grammar was a LOT better than that. Shame on Greg Koukl for making a strawman out of Hitchens.
0:41 - Prediction time. I predict the main thrust of the OP is "You obviously *DON'T* understand my argument, because if you did, you'd agree with me because I *DO* find it compelling!"
Yeah, still waiting for objective morality to be demonstrated. Until objective morals are shown to be true, the rest has no grounding. Also, since when has the absence of Objective Morals(tm) been equal to there being no morals at all?
Ah yes, the perpetual trap that conviction *must* indicate truth, because made-up-aspect-of-god; holy spirit. Ironically, this same conviction is what has led to the successive splintering of christianity (and similarly for many other religions). Obviously reliable! Haha
@@reeceguisse17 Alright, here goes: Under theism, everything is moral unless you don't believe in that interpretation of some text you think is inspired or written by the god you believe in and you have no way of showing anyone wrong; you just believe they are and can't be wrong and "they" obviously are. In secularism, evidence is king, accompanied with rationality and reason, by showing something beneficial, and in some cases just doing your best to gather as much information as possible and make an educated guess, sometimes with the help of experts, like in the case of secular governments. You can objectively show an action or belief to be wrong, which ensures progress towards more safety and well being, on a whole. Not accounting for certain temporary 4 year long leaps back to the dark ages. And we can objectively show that to be wrong. And we can objectively show that faith is therefor backwards and damaging. What we can't do is show that it's objectively good to care for our well being, but we can objectively show that if we like to exist, it is.
@@reeceguisse17 That's interesting. If I change the wording: since when has the absence of Objective Truth(tm) been equal to there being no truth at all? Would you agree? If so, how would you know it? The thing about objective moral statements is that they are truth claims, propositions about the nature of reality if you will. So non-objective moral statements would be unknowable because they don't reflect reality. They simply make claims, probably true, about the preference of the one making the claim. OK, but why should (note the ought) I care about their preferences? I've asked this question a bunch of times and nobody has yet given a coherent answer.
"This arrangement of lines could just as easily have been assigned to the 'f' sound as the 'k' sound..." I see what you did there. Or, rather, hear it.
@BTIsaac You didn't do your research. Paul has definitely made videos on Ben Shapiro and Petersen. Not that they are any better at reasonal argumentation than Koukl or Craig. and i sincerely doubt AND will deny that the other folks are even relevant in ANY way. Carl Benjamin is a clumsy troll that invests even less effort in his badly veiled appeal to popularity than Crowder does. His outing into Flat Earth demonstrated that richly. Also JLP is at least an agnostic that WANTS others to be christian for the sake of societal conformism, but has no clue about what faith and social norms actual are based on, so his arguments are crap and Ben Shapiro is a Jew that uses "judeo-christian" as an excuse why his opinion should matter (well he is a libertarian turd first and jew second, so he rarely shows religious influence in his badly worded opinions) So you are just sour that your specific sort of echo chamber isn't as valued here (where Paul deals with arguments and people that he was agreeing with when he was a christian up to his pretty recent deconversion (I think in 2012?) and who are still used INSIDE the christian corners of the Internet to "debunk atheism/science/reality"), asking to be served YOUR favorite food instead of accepting that every taste is different.
I also feel that the invisible sky wizard can't be all-powerful or all just if there is evil. Since he could have created a world completely without it.
OOOOH, that's GOOD. Very punny. I'm going to steal it, even though it doesn't work in the singular. Relie is just a misspelling, not to lie again. Do you have to repeat the same lie, or can you say, "Children are immune from virus" and then, "not everybody catches it"? That's a lie, and then everybody else "relied" without saying a word. This is getting confusing. Time for a nap.
Hey Paul just wanted to let you know that I love your videos and came over from genetically modified skeptic after you did a collaboration with him. Thank you for making your points consise and factual.
@@eugengolubic2186 you are probably missing the point. He proposed things required for morality. You asked, a what if question: "What if I don't have those traits?" and he answered coherently with his proposition that you would in that case be unable to understand morality. That's no agression... But you're right, he didn't provide anything to support his propostion. I recommend de Waal's sociobilogical hypothesis of morality, it explains this view...
@@eugengolubic2186 If you don't have any empathy (psychopathy or sociopathy) you most likely won't be a moral person although you likely will be able to act morally as long as it's in your own best interest. Pretty much the same thing goes for someone lacking a Desire for Society, hermits and anarchists do exist. Enlightened Self-Interest is basically the understanding that you agree to modify (or regulate) your behaviour (e.g. not kill people even if they deserve it) because everyone else agrees to modify their behaviour. See above.
The amount of times you have to define "good" and "bad" to these apologists is astounding. Honestly though, I appreciate it. It's not always intuitive, and the repetition will help me to explain it better if I ever have the need to do so in the future.
I think he's also missing the brain. He has been corrected so many times that the certainty that he's willfully and knowing lying to keep his job as an apologist has passed 99% and is rapidly approaching 100%.
I am a former Catholic now atheist who determines morality myself using these two methods. 1. Something is Moral, Right or Good if a particular action or choice promotes happiness, health or well being or somehow minimizes unnecessary harm or suffering or it does both. Something is Immoral, Bad or Wrong when a particular action or choice somehow diminishes happiness, health or well being or it somehow causes unnecessary harm or suffering or it does both Treatise on Morality 2. Use the Moral Veil of Ignorance. Viced Rhino Say an act of rape is about to be performed and there is just you and another person. You don't know if you're to be the victim or perpetrator, you would have to choose which you would want to be before the blind fold is removed. 3. Follow this through you life too: Avoid rather than Check Check rather than Hurt Hurt rather than Maim Maim rather than Kill For all life is precious , Nor can any be replaced . - Master Kan. Somethings to ponder when someone says that there can be no morality without God. I say there can and that I can determine what is moral for myself. Take care Paul and have a good day. PS. You can find these sayings on youtube, I have given credit to where they can be found, I try to follow these everyday and they are not mine.
I‘ll need to rewatch this to have these arguments at hand for any future discussion. Thanks for this video. Offtopic question: For music removal, what did you use ? Curious.
I personally love the argument because in practice god can not just account for morality but justify everything depending on how you interpret whichever text you believe is the scripture of the god you believe in, making it entirely moral to rape, murder, abuse, etc, all just depending on whatever you believe is moral, with absolutely no way of showing anyone else incorrect. Atheists don't have the "luxury" to claim anything moral that is detrimental to society or a person, or even to animals since we need them and you can even extrapolate that to vegetation and inanimate objects to the extent that our actions that affect those also affect us, either directly or indirectly. Or more accurately, secularism ensures the progress towards safety, well being, and equal opportunity to pursue happiness, because those are helpful things and no argument that goes against that will be sustainable and will eventually be countered and overruled with rationality, reason, and evidence. The classic argument that atheists can't account for morality only functions to show how backwards, evil and depraved faith is as a moral guide, or any guide for that matter. It's shit and it perpetuates, prolongs, and inevitably leads to more suffering; don't use it.
moral laws come from a moral law giver..... ok, since when did genocide, slavery, bigotry, racism, rape, and other atrocities that god endorsed become moral? so even if moral laws come from a moral law giver, and the god of the bible being an immoral pos, we can immediately destroy greg koukl's arguments by reaching a simple conclusion... the moral law giver isn't the god of the bible. as in addition to god being not real, he is also not moral...
3:23 - I would say atheists sometimes use the indirect rhetoric of “I don’t believe in a god and I act morally” as a socratic lesson to Christians that the tool(s) they are using to infer their god’s necessity to our shared morality which they consider to be objective) are insufficient to make such a claim. Those tools (for lack of a better word) being shared moral systems. “I think x is good, you think x is good. We both think Y is bad. Clearly we need god to infer this” and the atheist marks this wrong by pointing out: “absent of any acknowledgement to a deity, you and I share X as a good value. What reason then have we to include another figure which proves nothing by our choices or adherence to a standard?” And then of course Christians often simply say “you can’t be good, without their god.” Which, after being used often in their rhetoric, fuses the specific claim of “You can’t be a good person without a god” and “Good doesn’t exist, without a god” Aaaaand then of course some christians just say: “you’re borrowing from Christianity & my god, to be good.” I think that due to hairy discussions, these responses are used. And also that they aren’t mistaken, but rather the question is just imprecise most of the times.
Thanks for all you do to champion reason, Paul! I’m happy to be supporting your work on Patreon and encourage others to support with a few bucks monthly if you find this valuable.
What if I said moral laws come from the show The Good Place and we ought to obey then cause don't wanna be judged by those demons... We subjectively don't wanna suffer their subjective judgement... There's no escape from subjectivity.
I just realised why I love your videos so much. You talk slowly. I've been watching many videos in quarantine. There are RUclipsrs that have very interesting videos, but they talk really, really fast. I find it hard to focus on them for some reason. Could be the ADHD. They may also have really science-heavy videos, full of technical terms. Now I bet those videos would be hard for me to follow in my native language, since I haven't studied a science for 2 decades, but as English isn't even my native language, when I did study them, I studied them in a different language. I wish other channels would take after you, especially when they're rattling off geological terms. I almost failed geology. So if you have a science channel, please examine this aspect of your videos. I have a channel that teaches English, and in my first videos I did talk a bit too fast. Then I slowed down. Then again, I do have a degree in teaching. Keep up the good work Paul! My one pain is that I've watched all of your videos at least once. :( I have rewatched a couple, but my memory is too good.
@@Jonas-gl9ke It sounds weird then. What would be better is if people would space out their sentences more. Like not just rattle off their script, but actually pause after sentences, let us absorb the information, the graphics that they may be showing. I guess that's just some thing people either naturally realise or learn. I've done a lot of presentations even in elementary school. I was kind of known for it. So I probably learned this at one point, but it was so long ago, now I just assume people know that's how you're supposed to give a presentation. After all, an educational RUclips video is essentially a kind of presentation. Partly why I don't understand why not all teachers are just recording their classes now, and then using the online surfaces to consult on them with their students. But that's just something that is at the forefront of my mind nowadays.
I seem to recall WLC replying "tithing" in a debate. That's the one moral action a theist can do that's not open to the atheist. Don't recall Hitchens' response.
@@kmstanton We were talking about good actions, not evil ones. He said no one would hesitate a minute to think of an evil action that could only be performed by a theist. Good job!
@@kmstanton I 'd love to see that. Tithing is basically conning people of money in exchange for a prayer. It fits perfectly into the 2nd part of Hitch's challenge.
The example of the letter "m" is even more stark when you consider the fact that Russians use the same exact symbol for writing the equivalent of a letter "t". Same symbol, completely different sounds. Another example is "B": in English it is, you guessed it, the sound "b", while in Russian it's the equivalent of sound "v".
I agree with almost everything you said. I would only dispute that people have different goals. When you boil it down to basics, everything we do is to maximalize our pleasure and minimalize our suffering. No matter what names we will give to our goals, like eating good food, finding better job, finding the partner, etc., it all comes down to pleasure and suffering in my opinion.
For many years I have had many people explain that I can not believe in 'good' because I do not fallow their belief in some form of 'god'. When I was in collage I was assigned the reading of some ancient books, Ethics was among them. From this reading I found there are several flaws in the 'good' vs 'evil' vs 'god' issue. I will refer to people to read Ethics and the babble as Just books before going into the issues. This lead me to look into something that after several years of research I believe I (for me that is) a reason there is a flaw in the reasoning. Before desert religion, there were oh so many different Pagan religions, and each with it's own set of, if you will rules about 'morals'. From this I found that before the origins of 'cities' there were as the call them settlements, and from these settlement, came larger settlement and then cities. Some proven to be older then any of the desert religions, and in these 'cities' there were places where the inhabitants gathered, but only as was put in one book speculation about what these places were is known. So these 'small cities' did not have the christian god, but did have morals. Someone please explain these as not believing in their form of 'god'. Peace
Even languages with similar orthographies ascribe different sounds to the same letters. The sound represented by "v" in English is produced by "f" in Welsh (The English "f" sound is "ff" in Welsh). In
The section at 3:00 has happened in my real life. I, as an atheist was told that I couldn't be moral without God, not by a Christian Apologist, but my grandparents. So when he says that, it is true that it happens, buts its more punching down on an argument that only occurs on a personal level, not a scholarly level.
The grounding principal of morality is society. We are a social species with a massively developed brain. We need to live in a society to survive. We developed these moral laws (both through biological and societal evolution) in order to better survive as societies and as a species.
I can run this whole morality argument in reverse, can't i? 1) If God exists, we would have undisputed moral standards for all important areas of life, 2) We don't have undisputed moral standards for all important areas of life, 3) Therefore, God doesn't exist.
I respectively decline to consider that moral framework options only are 1) objective via supernatural narratives vs 2) subjective via people choosing their own goals. The other alternative is 3) objective via people choosing their own rational goals. Ayn Rand developed the idea of a morality that is objective, based on the natural world. The content of morality is given by the nature of the goal desired and the nature of the actor who tries to gain and keep that goal. If you want to eat a meal you cook yourself, you must first understand what kinds of food will nourish your body, You must learn about how to grow the food in a garden or learn to distinguish the fresh from the rotten in the grocery store. None of these actions are subjective given the goal. They are options to the foods you eat, but no option to the fact that you can eat a tomato but you can not eat a rock. I think it's time we take back the objective standard away from religion. Their concept of a moral code was always an argument from authority to establish their arbitrary values.
Ayn Rand? Objectivism? Really? That's one of the worst attempts at philosophy around. If you need actual arguments to show this, Google can show you a decent amount.
I’m pretty sure people will just respond « the actions aren’t subjective given the goals, they are subjective because the given goal is subjective » I’ve yet to encounter a single christian with a decent level of education that wouldn’t agree that you can, at least in principle, find objective « best solutions » to subjective desires, what they object to is the idea that because you can find objective solutions to said desires, it’d make your morality objective, when it fundamentally lies on a subjective basis (namely : what *you* desire). Personally I’m fine with that, I think that there is an overlap in most people’s basic fundamental wants, so it’s possible at least in principle to find a common ground, and therefore a common law, for almost everyone, and it doesn’t need to be objective anyway because even if it is objective, it wouldn’t really matter if it went against our most fundamental intuitions. If we found tomorrow that the most moral action there is, objectively, by the religious’ standards, is to kill babies by ripping them to shred in front of their parents, I doubt most people would actually do it, thus proving that they do not really care about an objective source of morality, they care about their or a close version of their morality to be true indisputably.
@@nathanjora7627 Being a person of self-made integrity is the death-nail for religious institutions. If it is possible for people to discover what is good and how to get it. If it is possible for people to live in harmony and discover that one can negotiate peaceful relations rather than bow to a not-of-this-earth floating commandment. If we actually call them on the anti-human idea that man is depraved and possess an original sin, religion has nothing to offer humanity. The more that we apply reason and observation to human action, the more we will discover practical, this-world answers.
@@nathanjora7627 I did misread you. You are writing about Ethical Subjectivism where the goal a person selects can only be subjective because they selected it. I am writing about Ethical Objectivism where the goals you select are objective in two ways. One, goals are selected on the basis of what you as a human need to survive and flourish (assuming you choose to live). Two, one can select the set of actions to accomplish the goals based on the nature of the world and people. What a human needs to live is not subjective. There are options, such as what kind of food to eat, but no option to abstain from eating food. We also need companionship, which means acting in such a way that people see you as a friend. Some of those actions are optional, such as how we see greetings vary across cultures (to bow or to shake). But being a person who listens and keeps promises or confidences is not. How well you keep promises and other actions contributes to other's estimates of your quality as a friend. I think there is a problem of harmonizing people's actions if we really only choose by our desires without consideration of the world and the other people in the world. Our common ground is the fact that we are all rational animals living on this planet in a set of social groups. It's the method of determining what is moral and what is not which distinguishes religious morality from a secular, objective morality. Religion relies on faith and adherence to an arbitrary set of duties whereas a truly objective ethics relies on reason and observation. With reason, once can negotiate differences of opinion. With faith, only violence or segregation is available.
I don't understand how someone can think that it literally requires magic for morality to exist. The reason morality exists is very simple: it's because cooperation is better than competition for the success of an organism(s). I don't want my things to be stolen, so I agree not to steal. I don't want to be killed, so I agree not to kill anyone. I want to avoid things that make my life harder, which means anything that induces stress or harm to me, and I have the capability to understand that others want the same. You could go on to ask, why do I, as well as other humans, feel this way? but it doesn't really matter, because it is simply a brute fact that we have internal drives which compel our behaviors and proclivities. I say compel because these internal drives are not irresistible (for most of us, depending on the particular internal drive in question), but we are unable to ignore or sublimate completely these internal drives.
Paulogia, please bring up Euthyphro Dilemma next time on a moral discussion based upon divine command theory. Also, be sure to discuss their objection, "False dilemma, Goodness is a part of God's nature". Is something like love apart of God's nature because it is good? Or is love good because it is apart of God's nature? Either objective morality is independent of God or morality is arbitrary. However, great video and keep up the good work.
The language analogy to morality was GENIUS, words could be created with a certain intended meaning, but language can change, many words you use, happen to have had a different meaning across different times, also, I can arrange a meeting with my friends in order to create a new language between us, changing the "G" to an "F". Language is ultimately subjective, it changes over time, and it´s their users who agree upon a certain meaning. Awesome video, Paul.
Going back to the letters. A Russian reader would understand "H" to represent the /n/ sound, "B" is the /v/ sound, "P" is the /r/ sound, and "C" is read exclusively as the /s/. Thus the Russian acronym for the USSR is rendered CCCP and read SSSR. It's the same arrangement of lines but different peoples have different agreed meanings for them.
Arguing that there's no 'moral' or 'good' actions without god, and asking if 'good' actions are actually good without god to say they are good, has always been very confusing to me. That's like asking if not murdering someone is better than murdering them if there's no law that says murdering is illegal...
So it's entirely a word game. No real argument whatsoever, so far as I can see. Just equivocations and lack of clarity in language, as Paul says. I would say this shouldn't be convincing to anyone, but I just ran into someone the other day who believes evil was a specific thing and that it comes from the Devil. Honestly, morally, to me this seems like wishful thinking. If evil is a noun , and there's one big bad entity that causes all of it , then we just have to beat that one entity and evil is solved, right? But, if as Paul says, it's a collection of undesirable actions , there's no bad guy we can topple to prevent all evil. And that's what it comes down to. "Evil as a noun, and the devil as the source of it", are just soothing concepts that things we find objectionable can be eradicated with one simple step. Just avoid the devil, and everything's okay. It's the moral equivalent of clickbait ads. Get rid of unsightly evil with one simple step. Would that the world were that simple. I'd rather wrestle with complex morality and find actual solutions to the world's problems. (Edited to fix speech-to-text screw ups)
Great video it's funny how people talk themselves in circles and yet these Christians find it sounds intellectual. have you ever thought about doing live podcasts I sure would love to have some more content for work thanks again
Linguistic student here, just want to back up your argument about arbitrariness in human language. That is considered a basic linguistic concept and is generally taught in every single intro to linguistics class. Words only have meanings because we all agree they have meaning.
The first ten seconds of this video is the main escape argument in the discussions in the RUclips comments on this and similar atheist channels. Atheist : "I don't agree because.... " Apologist: "you didn't understand me, you need to read William Lame Craig's book"
I personally prefer a proof by contradiction approach. If we accept their two premises that their god is the kind that would provide objective morality, and that their god exists, then the natural conclusion is that such an objective morality has been provided to the followers of that god. But, we can look at a number of common, main stream christian denominations, and see stark disagreements of what is and is not considered morally acceptable behavior. Therefore their religion does not possess an objective moral standard, so at least one of the two premises must be false. Either their god doesn't exist, or their god is not the type that would provide an objective morality, or both.
Why do these people always pick examples that are not at all evedently true? Objective morality exists, the universe had a beginning, life cannot come from non life, life has no ultimste meaning without god, complexity requires design and so on and do on. They never actually show it to be so.
Moral Law was around long before the Bible was written. Humans are social beings, so morality is how we progress from one generation to the next...no God require.
I think I’m confused, because the way the problem of evil was described by the apologist in this video, I’m having trouble distinguishing it from the Euthaphro dilemma (apologies for poor spelling there). Did he not explain the problem of evil well, or is it basically the same as the Euth. dilemma? Memory has failed me. Also I need lots of sleep now.
t = 10:57 "good is merely the label that we put on the range of potential actions that are most likely to result in the outcomes that we prefer if we agree on preferred outcomes" OK, but what if the calibration so to speak, of your moral compass is also something that is measured by this range?
9.21 - 'Morality, being good, depends on there being morals, moral laws, and moral laws require a moral law maker' - Greg Koukl. Not really, Greg. All functioning societies are able to decide between themselves what is good, what is moral. They have been doing this since the beginning of time and each society will decide their own moral code which may not be exactly the same as the moral code of other societies on the other side of the planet. Certain 'morals' are virtually universal - no society could function if it were acceptable to kill and steal but others are not so clear cut. A society where one person or entity decides unilaterally what is moral and inflicts those morals upon everybody else sounds like a dictatorship to me, a benign dictatorship perhaps but still a dictatorship. If the punishment for failing to live up to those imposed morals is eternal torture then it's not even benign.
Its sad when people cannot even face the possibility that their claims aren't convincing, or are wrong, and need to make up excuses like "they don't understand it" instead.
…has anyone translated the aurebesh at 7:28? figured i’d ask before i translated myself (not the point of the video i know i just get hung up at the little things)
"If you don't believe in writers, how can you read?" Sounds like an argument a 12 year old would make. First, define writer, is it anyone who can put pen to paper and scribble some signs? Or those who write as a profession? "I don't believe in journalist" does not imply that I think journalist do not exist, I simply don't believe them. Simple.
By usual accepted English language standards you saying, 'I don't believe in journalists' DOES imply that you think journalists do not exist, in exactly the same way as you might say, 'I don't believe in Bigfoot' or 'I don't believe in unicorns'. You need to be leaving out that small word 'in' so that it becomes, 'I don't believe journalists' for the implication to be that you do not accept what they say rather than you do not accept their existence.
What good is having a grounded objective morality if even Christians can't agree on what that objective morality is? This problem leaves the Christian in the position that everyone else is in , which is using your reason, experience, goals, intuitions, etc.. in trying to figure out what good choices to make in any given situation.
I don't know about Hitchens challenge, but an atheist can do a thing that a Christian can't do: Act altruistically. Since a Christian expects a reward in heaven, his actions can never be altruistic. The belief in a heavenly reward automatically casts a Christian's motives in doubt. Add an ultimate punishment in the form of hell into the mix and any chance of altruism dies a horrible death.
Okay, so... if a theist and atheist do the same thing, it's good when the theist does it, but not good when the atheist does it, because he doesn't believe in god. That... makes perfect sense, sure.
So, even though I live by the same tenants as a theist, I'm not a good person? Seriously? So person A is "good" because they choose to live by the tenants society seem good And person B is "good" because they are forced by another person to live by societies tenants. Who would be considered to have the better morales?
As a big fan of Science Fiction and Fantasy, I must admit that I am still astounded that there are people in the 21st century that actually believe in magical creatures from magical realms interacting with our universe at a time when just about everyone carries a video recorder in their pocket.
The arrangement of lines to form words in Chinese isn't entirely arbitrary. Many are formed to resemble the thing they refer to, I guess kind of like hieroglyphics in a sense. At least, that's what my Chinese teacher told the class when I was still in school. Nevertheless, I get your point and it's a valid point, just perhaps Chinese was not the best language to choose.
We are social animals who MUST get along in order to survive. We agree upon rules among ourselves and, to give them added oomph, we claim they are ancestral, traditional, divine, whatever. There's nothing special about being moral - it's who we are.
You should always consider whether an argument is valid before it is sound. Invalidity always disqualifies an argument from being sound. You can dismiss an argument easily if it is invalid. My point above was probably stated poorly.
I listen to guys like Koukl and find my own face contorting in confusion and disagreement. Then I imagine all the theists sagely nodding in appreciation of his 'wisdom'. How can people see the world so utterly differently???
The thing I hate about these apologetics is that 90% of the time it's just a list of assertions with no coherent logic behind them, and even less demonstrable utility. Russell's teapot is still a good counter to this, unfortunately because apologists haven't come up with anything new. Also, the reader/writer argument is just another watchmaker argument
Moral laws change, a lot. As humans we can interpret what is right and wrong more accurately over time. Moral laws are not fixed, hence they are not "created" by a god.
I have an issue with the "reading/writing" issue. Reading doesn't depend on "writers", it depends on the language it's written in...meaning you need something created by humans and agreed upon to mean a thing. So the roman alphabet I'm writing in - it's been agree to mean abc & xyz. So has the ampersand I just used. and the "quotes". So reading doesn't depend on writings only - it depends on HOW a thing is written, and in what...which is a Human construct. @7:20 and you just made that argument. I need to keep watching before I comment.
I just wanna know who that woman in the thumbnail is lol. Well, and I think Patricia Churchland wrote a good book on this (doesn't require belief in elimanitive materialism) called Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition.
Greg had barely started mentioning a "common atheist misconception" when I knew he was going for the "you think atheists can't do good" thing. It's astonishing how predictably they bring up the same old objections that nobody makes anymore (or never made). Are they really this far behind the current conversation? Are church conversations really this insular and stagnant? Or do apologists like Greg just purposefully toss these easy pitches into the air and knock them out of the park to soothe and impress their audiences? Maybe it's a combination. Like the number of licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll, the world may never know.
I've heard atheists saying these things... when it's theists outright claiming that atheists can't be moral. It's a response to them telling us that. That's probably where he heard it, and again misunderstood the argument and thought it was about a different topic.
Heyyy... I see a Zophet of Prod in the comments ;)
They have to know these topics have been disputed and explained many many times. I don't know if they don't understand or if they are just that dishonest.
@Jeff Scott yeah, I’ve heard it too, but not as a response to this argument. An argument that is one of the clearest cases of begging the question I have ever seen.
I get a kick out of theists who say, if there were no god, then they would just do whatever they want. Cheat, Steal, Kill .... I have literally heard Ken Hovind (sp?) say this.
It always makes me think that these people must be awful human beings.
“Boy, I sure would like to rape that lady over there. Too bad God says it’s wrong.” Only, side note, it’s not always wrong according to the Bible.
Ackchyually it's a Tootsie Pop xD
Never get rid of your intro theme! It is perfect!
Say it again 😭😭
I can't get behind it. It makes me feel like im about to watch a boring documentary about irish countryside sheep herders
MegaVirus700 that’s part of the charm
It’s perfect! Matches the feel of the content so well.
It's really grown on me. I didn't care for it at first, especially with how clever and catchy the 'Ham and AIGs" theme is. It just seemed too Irish to fit the content, but I kind of like it now.
Can’t lose any arguments if you shut off those darn comments.
god dammit. i am drinking coffee and you just had to make me snort...
@S Gloobal wow, welcome back mister dishonest bullshiter!
@S Gloobal Isn't this video considered a refutation?
S Gloobal
@S Gloobal
Just because you categorically refuse to accept that you have been refuted countless times, does not mean that you have not been refuted countless times.
@S Gloobal Can't lose arguments when theists never refute you after all the "debates" you've done.
YAY!
First in my heart, and in the comments.
@@Paulogia get a room,😍
You got in first, and "YAY!" is all you have to say about this subject? You are smart enough to operate a computer or cell phone, and smart enough to watch this video, and the first, and ONLY, thing that comes to mind is "YAY!"?
I actually find THAT immoral, and sad. I may agree with you, or disagree with you, but we'll never know. Sad. Just sad.
BTFOOMNY unless you know the context of their “Yay”. How can you determine the morality of it? Perhaps “yay” simply refers to “yay, someone I fallow put out a new video”. To clams a persons joy is immoral, without knowing the context is presumptuous of you.
In fact, to be first in the comments. Usually means one has not watched the video before commenting. So the “Yay” can reasonably be assumed to not be a direct response to the exact content of the video. But more likely the existence of the video itself.
@@inthewindago a twenty minute set of comments over one "Yay!". Shannon got her money's worth out of it. Yay, Shannon. :-)
I still haven't heard how these guys determined that their god isn't the "ultimate" bad guy.
The book he wrote said so. Duh!
cause god says he's not ;)
@@caligo7918 But then, he would, wouldn't he?
Of course, if you read the Bible, you'll find verses where he explicitly claims to be responsible for all evil, so ...
*ahem* only the MAXIMAL bad guy.
@S Gloobal That doesn't follow. And indeed, I don't believe in an "ultimate eternal source of good" (whatever that even means) _or_ "evil" in the religious sense (as opposed to a secular meaning more or less like "any malevolent moral actor doing sufficiently bad stuff", with good and bad as defined by Paulogia, and malevolent just another term describing that his goals and/or methods are sufficiently far toward what I consider "bad").
And in any case, apologists always claim that "there are objective morals", but I don't see how they can arrive at their conclusion unless they presuppose God (in which case I'd still object that that's just one more subjective definition, but that's a different argument). I can certainly see no sign of that "objective morality" in the world I see, only a vast number of differing moral systems. The few generalities are not enough to define a moral system, and in any case, are trivially easy to explain with evolution. Hell, I can see how my own moral system changes throughout my life (not dramatically, but still).
6:22 I don't believe for a second that Hitchens would have said "I can read anything just as good as you can read" for two reasons. First, he would have had a far better response to such an inane scenario, and second, his grammar was a LOT better than that. Shame on Greg Koukl for making a strawman out of Hitchens.
Why would Hitchens ever say he doesn't believe in writers? He *was* a writer, ferchrissakes! That's how he earned his money!
When you know that you have no valid argument, the only thing left is grasping at straws so strawmen.
Even if you agreed with his entire fallacious premise, the obvious response is "yeah...HUMANS are the moral lawmakers."
Which easily answers why morality is different for different groups of people.
@@KaiHenningsen And why it changes as those groups of people change.
0:41 - Prediction time. I predict the main thrust of the OP is "You obviously *DON'T* understand my argument, because if you did, you'd agree with me because I *DO* find it compelling!"
Yeah, still waiting for objective morality to be demonstrated. Until objective morals are shown to be true, the rest has no grounding.
Also, since when has the absence of Objective Morals(tm) been equal to there being no morals at all?
Ah yes, the perpetual trap that conviction *must* indicate truth, because made-up-aspect-of-god; holy spirit. Ironically, this same conviction is what has led to the successive splintering of christianity (and similarly for many other religions). Obviously reliable! Haha
Even when I used to be a theist I saw right through this argument. It relies on one thing you believe in to prove another thing you believe in.
@@reeceguisse17 Alright, here goes:
Under theism, everything is moral unless you don't believe in that interpretation of some text you think is inspired or written by the god you believe in and you have no way of showing anyone wrong; you just believe they are and can't be wrong and "they" obviously are.
In secularism, evidence is king, accompanied with rationality and reason, by showing something beneficial, and in some cases just doing your best to gather as much information as possible and make an educated guess, sometimes with the help of experts, like in the case of secular governments. You can objectively show an action or belief to be wrong, which ensures progress towards more safety and well being, on a whole. Not accounting for certain temporary 4 year long leaps back to the dark ages. And we can objectively show that to be wrong. And we can objectively show that faith is therefor backwards and damaging. What we can't do is show that it's objectively good to care for our well being, but we can objectively show that if we like to exist, it is.
@@reeceguisse17 That's interesting. If I change the wording: since when has the absence of Objective Truth(tm) been equal to there being no truth at all? Would you agree? If so, how would you know it? The thing about objective moral statements is that they are truth claims, propositions about the nature of reality if you will. So non-objective moral statements would be unknowable because they don't reflect reality. They simply make claims, probably true, about the preference of the one making the claim. OK, but why should (note the ought) I care about their preferences? I've asked this question a bunch of times and nobody has yet given a coherent answer.
"This arrangement of lines could just as easily have been assigned to the 'f' sound as the 'k' sound..." I see what you did there. Or, rather, hear it.
😊
@BTIsaac You didn't do your research. Paul has definitely made videos on Ben Shapiro and Petersen. Not that they are any better at reasonal argumentation than Koukl or Craig. and i sincerely doubt AND will deny that the other folks are even relevant in ANY way. Carl Benjamin is a clumsy troll that invests even less effort in his badly veiled appeal to popularity than Crowder does. His outing into Flat Earth demonstrated that richly.
Also JLP is at least an agnostic that WANTS others to be christian for the sake of societal conformism, but has no clue about what faith and social norms actual are based on, so his arguments are crap and Ben Shapiro is a Jew that uses "judeo-christian" as an excuse why his opinion should matter (well he is a libertarian turd first and jew second, so he rarely shows religious influence in his badly worded opinions)
So you are just sour that your specific sort of echo chamber isn't as valued here (where Paul deals with arguments and people that he was agreeing with when he was a christian up to his pretty recent deconversion (I think in 2012?) and who are still used INSIDE the christian corners of the Internet to "debunk atheism/science/reality"), asking to be served YOUR favorite food instead of accepting that every taste is different.
@@Ugly_German_Truths Did Sargon really get into flat Earth? I don't pay attention to him but that would be hilarious.
Personally, I think Greg Koukl should get kuffed.
I also feel that the invisible sky wizard can't be all-powerful or all just if there is evil. Since he could have created a world completely without it.
Have you not seen the Matrix!?
Craig "relies" all right, he lies once then repeats the lie.
OOOOH, that's GOOD. Very punny. I'm going to steal it, even though it doesn't work in the singular. Relie is just a misspelling, not to lie again. Do you have to repeat the same lie, or can you say, "Children are immune from virus" and then, "not everybody catches it"? That's a lie, and then everybody else "relied" without saying a word.
This is getting confusing. Time for a nap.
@S Gloobal did you... watch the video? the one you're commenting on right now?
@S Gloobal I just talked to god, and even she thinks you are a putz.
@S Gloobal if you actually watched it, I don't need to, I have other stuff to do
@S Gloobal I'm not here for a discussion right now, please respect that
Hey Paul just wanted to let you know that I love your videos and came over from genetically modified skeptic after you did a collaboration with him. Thank you for making your points consise and factual.
Always glad to see a new video pop up :)
Morality comes from:
Empathy;
Desire for Society;
Enlightened Self-Interest;
… no god required.
What if I have none of those?
You would have to explain what do you mean by "enlightened".
@Joe Horn relax, I just asked "What if".
@Joe Horn I just wanted to hear your case for your position.
@@eugengolubic2186 you are probably missing the point. He proposed things required for morality. You asked, a what if question: "What if I don't have those traits?" and he answered coherently with his proposition that you would in that case be unable to understand morality. That's no agression... But you're right, he didn't provide anything to support his propostion.
I recommend de Waal's sociobilogical hypothesis of morality, it explains this view...
@@eugengolubic2186 If you don't have any empathy (psychopathy or sociopathy) you most likely won't be a moral person although you likely will be able to act morally as long as it's in your own best interest. Pretty much the same thing goes for someone lacking a Desire for Society, hermits and anarchists do exist.
Enlightened Self-Interest is basically the understanding that you agree to modify (or regulate) your behaviour (e.g. not kill people even if they deserve it) because everyone else agrees to modify their behaviour. See above.
I always learn something watching your videos. I hope my channel grows like yours. I love it.
The only bad thing I can say about your videos is they aren’t long enough. Keep up the great work.
The amount of times you have to define "good" and "bad" to these apologists is astounding. Honestly though, I appreciate it. It's not always intuitive, and the repetition will help me to explain it better if I ever have the need to do so in the future.
Alt title: Greg Koukl and the moral argument: a case study in missing the point.
I think he's also missing the brain. He has been corrected so many times that the certainty that he's willfully and knowing lying to keep his job as an apologist has passed 99% and is rapidly approaching 100%.
I am a former Catholic now atheist who determines morality myself using these two methods.
1. Something is Moral, Right or Good if a particular action or choice promotes happiness, health or well being or somehow minimizes unnecessary harm or suffering or it does both.
Something is Immoral, Bad or Wrong when a particular action or choice somehow diminishes happiness, health or well being or it somehow causes unnecessary harm or suffering or it does both
Treatise on Morality
2. Use the Moral Veil of Ignorance. Viced Rhino
Say an act of rape is about to be performed and there is just you and another person. You don't know if you're to be the victim or perpetrator, you would have to choose which you would want to be before the blind fold is removed.
3. Follow this through you life too:
Avoid rather than Check
Check rather than Hurt
Hurt rather than Maim
Maim rather than Kill
For all life is precious , Nor can any be replaced . - Master Kan.
Somethings to ponder when someone says that there can be no morality without God. I say there can and that I can determine what is moral for myself.
Take care Paul and have a good day.
PS. You can find these sayings on youtube, I have given credit to where they can be found, I try to follow these everyday and they are not mine.
I‘ll need to rewatch this to have these arguments at hand for any future discussion. Thanks for this video. Offtopic question: For music removal, what did you use ? Curious.
Ah the classic “atheism can’t account for morality” gaslighting routine.
I personally love the argument because in practice god can not just account for morality but justify everything depending on how you interpret whichever text you believe is the scripture of the god you believe in, making it entirely moral to rape, murder, abuse, etc, all just depending on whatever you believe is moral, with absolutely no way of showing anyone else incorrect.
Atheists don't have the "luxury" to claim anything moral that is detrimental to society or a person, or even to animals since we need them and you can even extrapolate that to vegetation and inanimate objects to the extent that our actions that affect those also affect us, either directly or indirectly.
Or more accurately, secularism ensures the progress towards safety, well being, and equal opportunity to pursue happiness, because those are helpful things and no argument that goes against that will be sustainable and will eventually be countered and overruled with rationality, reason, and evidence.
The classic argument that atheists can't account for morality only functions to show how backwards, evil and depraved faith is as a moral guide, or any guide for that matter. It's shit and it perpetuates, prolongs, and inevitably leads to more suffering; don't use it.
Hold on. hit the pause button, I need my deep boots for Greggy.
moral laws come from a moral law giver..... ok, since when did genocide, slavery, bigotry, racism, rape, and other atrocities that god endorsed become moral?
so even if moral laws come from a moral law giver,
and the god of the bible being an immoral pos,
we can immediately destroy greg koukl's arguments by reaching a simple conclusion...
the moral law giver isn't the god of the bible.
as in addition to god being not real, he is also not moral...
3:23 - I would say atheists sometimes use the indirect rhetoric of “I don’t believe in a god and I act morally” as a socratic lesson to Christians that the tool(s) they are using to infer their god’s necessity to our shared morality which they consider to be objective) are insufficient to make such a claim. Those tools (for lack of a better word) being shared moral systems. “I think x is good, you think x is good. We both think Y is bad. Clearly we need god to infer this”
and the atheist marks this wrong by pointing out: “absent of any acknowledgement to a deity, you and I share X as a good value. What reason then have we to include another figure which proves nothing by our choices or adherence to a standard?”
And then of course Christians often simply say “you can’t be good, without their god.” Which, after being used often in their rhetoric, fuses the specific claim of “You can’t be a good person without a god” and “Good doesn’t exist, without a god”
Aaaaand then of course some christians just say: “you’re borrowing from Christianity & my god, to be good.”
I think that due to hairy discussions, these responses are used. And also that they aren’t mistaken, but rather the question is just imprecise most of the times.
Yes Christians trademarked morality. You have to pay 15% surcharge everytime you don't murder someone.
Thanks for all you do to champion reason, Paul! I’m happy to be supporting your work on Patreon and encourage others to support with a few bucks monthly if you find this valuable.
I love that you almost snuck in a naughty word when you made the ffff sound and the k sound sequentially.
What if I said moral laws come from the show The Good Place and we ought to obey then cause don't wanna be judged by those demons... We subjectively don't wanna suffer their subjective judgement... There's no escape from subjectivity.
I just realised why I love your videos so much. You talk slowly. I've been watching many videos in quarantine. There are RUclipsrs that have very interesting videos, but they talk really, really fast. I find it hard to focus on them for some reason. Could be the ADHD. They may also have really science-heavy videos, full of technical terms. Now I bet those videos would be hard for me to follow in my native language, since I haven't studied a science for 2 decades, but as English isn't even my native language, when I did study them, I studied them in a different language. I wish other channels would take after you, especially when they're rattling off geological terms. I almost failed geology. So if you have a science channel, please examine this aspect of your videos. I have a channel that teaches English, and in my first videos I did talk a bit too fast. Then I slowed down. Then again, I do have a degree in teaching.
Keep up the good work Paul! My one pain is that I've watched all of your videos at least once. :( I have rewatched a couple, but my memory is too good.
Izzy's Travel Diaries:You can slow down (or speed up) the playback speed of any RUclips video. Hit the 3 vertical dots in the upper right hand corner.
@@Jonas-gl9ke It sounds weird then. What would be better is if people would space out their sentences more. Like not just rattle off their script, but actually pause after sentences, let us absorb the information, the graphics that they may be showing. I guess that's just some thing people either naturally realise or learn. I've done a lot of presentations even in elementary school. I was kind of known for it. So I probably learned this at one point, but it was so long ago, now I just assume people know that's how you're supposed to give a presentation. After all, an educational RUclips video is essentially a kind of presentation. Partly why I don't understand why not all teachers are just recording their classes now, and then using the online surfaces to consult on them with their students. But that's just something that is at the forefront of my mind nowadays.
The letter "m" (lower case) in cursive Cyrillic is read as "t". That's where I thought you would go.
Solid work! Very clear cut.
Loved how you used his reading analogy against him. Top notch stuff there.
Hitch's question still hasn't been answered.
I seem to recall WLC replying "tithing" in a debate. That's the one moral action a theist can do that's not open to the atheist. Don't recall Hitchens' response.
@@kmstanton We were talking about good actions, not evil ones. He said no one would hesitate a minute to think of an evil action that could only be performed by a theist. Good job!
Rembrandt972 alternatively you can say tihing is a form of charity and an atheist can clearly donate to charity but I think I like your answer better
@@flyerfan8 Tithing is not necessarily charity. I don't consider it a charitable contribution to help a lying bastard make his boat payment.
@@kmstanton I 'd love to see that.
Tithing is basically conning people of money in exchange for a prayer. It fits perfectly into the 2nd part of Hitch's challenge.
The example of the letter "m" is even more stark when you consider the fact that Russians use the same exact symbol for writing the equivalent of a letter "t". Same symbol, completely different sounds. Another example is "B": in English it is, you guessed it, the sound "b", while in Russian it's the equivalent of sound "v".
I only watch your channel to arm myself with proper thinking. Wait... that's alot, thank you for your relentless efforts.
I agree with almost everything you said. I would only dispute that people have different goals. When you boil it down to basics, everything we do is to maximalize our pleasure and minimalize our suffering. No matter what names we will give to our goals, like eating good food, finding better job, finding the partner, etc., it all comes down to pleasure and suffering in my opinion.
I love you're channel Paul! You give me hope for humanity, I would love to here you debating someone live. Have a great day and keep up the good work!
For many years I have had many people explain that I can not believe in 'good' because I do not fallow their belief in some form of 'god'. When I was in collage I was assigned the reading of some ancient books, Ethics was among them. From this reading I found there are several flaws in the 'good' vs 'evil' vs 'god' issue. I will refer to people to read Ethics and the babble as Just books before going into the issues. This lead me to look into something that after several years of research I believe I (for me that is) a reason there is a flaw in the reasoning. Before desert religion, there were oh so many different Pagan religions, and each with it's own set of, if you will rules about 'morals'. From this I found that before the origins of 'cities' there were as the call them settlements, and from these settlement, came larger settlement and then cities. Some proven to be older then any of the desert religions, and in these 'cities' there were places where the inhabitants gathered, but only as was put in one book speculation about what these places were is known. So these 'small cities' did not have the christian god, but did have morals. Someone please explain these as not believing in their form of 'god'. Peace
Morality evolved like everything else; no supernatural intervention needed.
Even languages with similar orthographies ascribe different sounds to the same letters. The sound represented by "v" in English is produced by "f" in Welsh (The English "f" sound is "ff" in Welsh). In
The section at 3:00 has happened in my real life. I, as an atheist was told that I couldn't be moral without God, not by a Christian Apologist, but my grandparents. So when he says that, it is true that it happens, buts its more punching down on an argument that only occurs on a personal level, not a scholarly level.
You must be from the frozen North like me eh?!;) I love how you say, "about" *giggles
The grounding principal of morality is society. We are a social species with a massively developed brain. We need to live in a society to survive. We developed these moral laws (both through biological and societal evolution) in order to better survive as societies and as a species.
Heck yeah fresh Paulogia!
I can run this whole morality argument in reverse, can't i? 1) If God exists, we would have undisputed moral standards for all important areas of life, 2) We don't have undisputed moral standards for all important areas of life, 3) Therefore, God doesn't exist.
I respectively decline to consider that moral framework options only are 1) objective via supernatural narratives vs 2) subjective via people choosing their own goals. The other alternative is 3) objective via people choosing their own rational goals.
Ayn Rand developed the idea of a morality that is objective, based on the natural world. The content of morality is given by the nature of the goal desired and the nature of the actor who tries to gain and keep that goal.
If you want to eat a meal you cook yourself, you must first understand what kinds of food will nourish your body, You must learn about how to grow the food in a garden or learn to distinguish the fresh from the rotten in the grocery store. None of these actions are subjective given the goal. They are options to the foods you eat, but no option to the fact that you can eat a tomato but you can not eat a rock.
I think it's time we take back the objective standard away from religion. Their concept of a moral code was always an argument from authority to establish their arbitrary values.
Ayn Rand? Objectivism? Really? That's one of the worst attempts at philosophy around. If you need actual arguments to show this, Google can show you a decent amount.
I’m pretty sure people will just respond « the actions aren’t subjective given the goals, they are subjective because the given goal is subjective »
I’ve yet to encounter a single christian with a decent level of education that wouldn’t agree that you can, at least in principle, find objective « best solutions » to subjective desires, what they object to is the idea that because you can find objective solutions to said desires, it’d make your morality objective, when it fundamentally lies on a subjective basis (namely : what *you* desire).
Personally I’m fine with that, I think that there is an overlap in most people’s basic fundamental wants, so it’s possible at least in principle to find a common ground, and therefore a common law, for almost everyone, and it doesn’t need to be objective anyway because even if it is objective, it wouldn’t really matter if it went against our most fundamental intuitions. If we found tomorrow that the most moral action there is, objectively, by the religious’ standards, is to kill babies by ripping them to shred in front of their parents, I doubt most people would actually do it, thus proving that they do not really care about an objective source of morality, they care about their or a close version of their morality to be true indisputably.
@@nathanjora7627 Being a person of self-made integrity is the death-nail for religious institutions. If it is possible for people to discover what is good and how to get it. If it is possible for people to live in harmony and discover that one can negotiate peaceful relations rather than bow to a not-of-this-earth floating commandment. If we actually call them on the anti-human idea that man is depraved and possess an original sin, religion has nothing to offer humanity. The more that we apply reason and observation to human action, the more we will discover practical, this-world answers.
Eric Hollas ... I’m sorry to say that I’m quite puzzled :|
How is your answer relevant to what I said ?
@@nathanjora7627 I did misread you. You are writing about Ethical Subjectivism where the goal a person selects can only be subjective because they selected it. I am writing about Ethical Objectivism where the goals you select are objective in two ways. One, goals are selected on the basis of what you as a human need to survive and flourish (assuming you choose to live). Two, one can select the set of actions to accomplish the goals based on the nature of the world and people.
What a human needs to live is not subjective. There are options, such as what kind of food to eat, but no option to abstain from eating food. We also need companionship, which means acting in such a way that people see you as a friend. Some of those actions are optional, such as how we see greetings vary across cultures (to bow or to shake). But being a person who listens and keeps promises or confidences is not. How well you keep promises and other actions contributes to other's estimates of your quality as a friend.
I think there is a problem of harmonizing people's actions if we really only choose by our desires without consideration of the world and the other people in the world. Our common ground is the fact that we are all rational animals living on this planet in a set of social groups. It's the method of determining what is moral and what is not which distinguishes religious morality from a secular, objective morality. Religion relies on faith and adherence to an arbitrary set of duties whereas a truly objective ethics relies on reason and observation. With reason, once can negotiate differences of opinion. With faith, only violence or segregation is available.
I don't understand how someone can think that it literally requires magic for morality to exist. The reason morality exists is very simple: it's because cooperation is better than competition for the success of an organism(s). I don't want my things to be stolen, so I agree not to steal. I don't want to be killed, so I agree not to kill anyone. I want to avoid things that make my life harder, which means anything that induces stress or harm to me, and I have the capability to understand that others want the same. You could go on to ask, why do I, as well as other humans, feel this way? but it doesn't really matter, because it is simply a brute fact that we have internal drives which compel our behaviors and proclivities. I say compel because these internal drives are not irresistible (for most of us, depending on the particular internal drive in question), but we are unable to ignore or sublimate completely these internal drives.
Paulogia, please bring up Euthyphro Dilemma next time on a moral discussion based upon divine command theory. Also, be sure to discuss their objection, "False dilemma, Goodness is a part of God's nature".
Is something like love apart of God's nature because it is good? Or is love good because it is apart of God's nature?
Either objective morality is independent of God or morality is arbitrary. However, great video and keep up the good work.
The language analogy to morality was GENIUS, words could be created with a certain intended meaning, but language can change, many words you use, happen to have had a different meaning across different times, also, I can arrange a meeting with my friends in order to create a new language between us, changing the "G" to an "F". Language is ultimately subjective, it changes over time, and it´s their users who agree upon a certain meaning. Awesome video, Paul.
Going back to the letters. A Russian reader would understand "H" to represent the /n/ sound, "B" is the /v/ sound, "P" is the /r/ sound, and "C" is read exclusively as the /s/. Thus the Russian acronym for the USSR is rendered CCCP and read SSSR. It's the same arrangement of lines but different peoples have different agreed meanings for them.
Arguing that there's no 'moral' or 'good' actions without god, and asking if 'good' actions are actually good without god to say they are good, has always been very confusing to me. That's like asking if not murdering someone is better than murdering them if there's no law that says murdering is illegal...
Lovely analogy between language and morals. I really enjoy your videos - thank you.
I see you with that hockey clip.
So it's entirely a word game. No real argument whatsoever, so far as I can see. Just equivocations and lack of clarity in language, as Paul says.
I would say this shouldn't be convincing to anyone, but I just ran into someone the other day who believes evil was a specific thing and that it comes from the Devil. Honestly, morally, to me this seems like wishful thinking. If evil is a noun , and there's one big bad entity that causes all of it , then we just have to beat that one entity and evil is solved, right? But, if as Paul says, it's a collection of undesirable actions , there's no bad guy we can topple to prevent all evil. And that's what it comes down to. "Evil as a noun, and the devil as the source of it", are just soothing concepts that things we find objectionable can be eradicated with one simple step. Just avoid the devil, and everything's okay. It's the moral equivalent of clickbait ads. Get rid of unsightly evil with one simple step. Would that the world were that simple.
I'd rather wrestle with complex morality and find actual solutions to the world's problems.
(Edited to fix speech-to-text screw ups)
Great video it's funny how people talk themselves in circles and yet these Christians find it sounds intellectual. have you ever thought about doing live podcasts I sure would love to have some more content for work thanks again
Linguistic student here, just want to back up your argument about arbitrariness in human language. That is considered a basic linguistic concept and is generally taught in every single intro to linguistics class.
Words only have meanings because we all agree they have meaning.
The first ten seconds of this video is the main escape argument in the discussions in the RUclips comments on this and similar atheist channels.
Atheist : "I don't agree because.... "
Apologist: "you didn't understand me, you need to read William Lame Craig's book"
I personally prefer a proof by contradiction approach. If we accept their two premises that their god is the kind that would provide objective morality, and that their god exists, then the natural conclusion is that such an objective morality has been provided to the followers of that god. But, we can look at a number of common, main stream christian denominations, and see stark disagreements of what is and is not considered morally acceptable behavior. Therefore their religion does not possess an objective moral standard, so at least one of the two premises must be false. Either their god doesn't exist, or their god is not the type that would provide an objective morality, or both.
After watching Greg I need a shower he makes me feel so grimey
What a shock! THe original video has comments turned off! Who would have thought?
Wow, Paul, you've gotten really good at this. Ver condensed to the poin.
Mike Winger just said you had a video with him, when are you going to post it?
He and I had a debate on another channel. Search for it. If you can’t find it, let me know
Thank you
Thank you for using a computer display from the 80's "V" TV series. 😁
Why do these people always pick examples that are not at all evedently true? Objective morality exists, the universe had a beginning, life cannot come from non life, life has no ultimste meaning without god, complexity requires design and so on and do on. They never actually show it to be so.
There are no moral laws. There is judgments on moral issues.
Moral Law was around long before the Bible was written. Humans are social beings, so morality is how we progress from one generation to the next...no God require.
I think I’m confused, because the way the problem of evil was described by the apologist in this video, I’m having trouble distinguishing it from the Euthaphro dilemma (apologies for poor spelling there).
Did he not explain the problem of evil well, or is it basically the same as the Euth. dilemma? Memory has failed me. Also I need lots of sleep now.
I'm more used to the "What do words even mean" argument coming from new age quacks not creationist quacks.
Hey, Paul! I did a miniseries about morality a LONG time ago. You know a christian is losing an argument when they throw this one at you
i check Greg Koukl talks and comments are off on all that i watch i wonder why?
I enjoyed the framework around language. That was brilliant. I enjoyed that more than what was, perhaps, legally allowed.
t = 10:57 "good
is merely the label that we put on the range of potential actions that are most likely to result in the outcomes that we prefer if we agree on preferred outcomes" OK, but what if the calibration so to speak, of your moral compass is also something that is measured by this range?
4:43-damn! You've been hitch-slapped!
9.21 - 'Morality, being good, depends on there being morals, moral laws, and moral laws require a moral law maker' - Greg Koukl.
Not really, Greg. All functioning societies are able to decide between themselves what is good, what is moral. They have been doing this since the beginning of time and each society will decide their own moral code which may not be exactly the same as the moral code of other societies on the other side of the planet. Certain 'morals' are virtually universal - no society could function if it were acceptable to kill and steal but others are not so clear cut.
A society where one person or entity decides unilaterally what is moral and inflicts those morals upon everybody else sounds like a dictatorship to me, a benign dictatorship perhaps but still a dictatorship. If the punishment for failing to live up to those imposed morals is eternal torture then it's not even benign.
Its sad when people cannot even face the possibility that their claims aren't convincing, or are wrong, and need to make up excuses like "they don't understand it" instead.
…has anyone translated the aurebesh at 7:28? figured i’d ask before i translated myself (not the point of the video i know i just get hung up at the little things)
Haven’t started the vid yet but please tell me he used the jingle again
Jingle? Whadda yo meme?
Wisdom and Greg Koukl are mutually exclusive concepts.
I've never heard that argument. Well, I've never head someone saying that.
“we invented logic to understand the world” is also a circular argument.
The reification of good, evil, morality, etc. is Platonism, the Hellenization of Judaism that Christianity represented.
"If you don't believe in writers, how can you read?" Sounds like an argument a 12 year old would make. First, define writer, is it anyone who can put pen to paper and scribble some signs? Or those who write as a profession? "I don't believe in journalist" does not imply that I think journalist do not exist, I simply don't believe them. Simple.
By usual accepted English language standards you saying, 'I don't believe in journalists' DOES imply that you think journalists do not exist, in exactly the same way as you might say, 'I don't believe in Bigfoot' or 'I don't believe in unicorns'. You need to be leaving out that small word 'in' so that it becomes, 'I don't believe journalists' for the implication to be that you do not accept what they say rather than you do not accept their existence.
What good is having a grounded objective morality if even Christians can't agree on what that objective morality is? This problem leaves the Christian in the position that everyone else is in , which is using your reason, experience, goals, intuitions, etc.. in trying to figure out what good choices to make in any given situation.
I don't know about Hitchens challenge, but an atheist can do a thing that a Christian can't do: Act altruistically.
Since a Christian expects a reward in heaven, his actions can never be altruistic. The belief in a heavenly reward automatically casts a Christian's motives in doubt.
Add an ultimate punishment in the form of hell into the mix and any chance of altruism dies a horrible death.
Okay, so... if a theist and atheist do the same thing, it's good when the theist does it, but not good when the atheist does it, because he doesn't believe in god.
That... makes perfect sense, sure.
LOL crushed that analogy so fkin hard it become a blackhole.
Great content.
The dishonesty of the particular apologist is astounding
So, even though I live by the same tenants as a theist, I'm not a good person? Seriously?
So person A is "good" because they choose to live by the tenants society seem good
And person B is "good" because they are forced by another person to live by societies tenants.
Who would be considered to have the better morales?
Another great video. Thank you.
5:53 I have to agree with Paul here
Crazy that at this time and age we are debating religion, as if God is real! 🤷♂️
As a big fan of Science Fiction and Fantasy, I must admit that I am still astounded that there are people in the 21st century that actually believe in magical creatures from magical realms interacting with our universe at a time when just about everyone carries a video recorder in their pocket.
The arrangement of lines to form words in Chinese isn't entirely arbitrary. Many are formed to resemble the thing they refer to, I guess kind of like hieroglyphics in a sense. At least, that's what my Chinese teacher told the class when I was still in school. Nevertheless, I get your point and it's a valid point, just perhaps Chinese was not the best language to choose.
We are social animals who MUST get along in order to survive. We agree upon rules among ourselves and, to give them added oomph, we claim they are ancestral, traditional, divine, whatever. There's nothing special about being moral - it's who we are.
Posthumous Hitchslap, brought to you by Paulogia.
Bravo sir.
You should always consider whether an argument is valid before it is sound. Invalidity always disqualifies an argument from being sound. You can dismiss an argument easily if it is invalid. My point above was probably stated poorly.
I listen to guys like Koukl and find my own face contorting in confusion and disagreement. Then I imagine all the theists sagely nodding in appreciation of his 'wisdom'.
How can people see the world so utterly differently???
The thing I hate about these apologetics is that 90% of the time it's just a list of assertions with no coherent logic behind them, and even less demonstrable utility.
Russell's teapot is still a good counter to this, unfortunately because apologists haven't come up with anything new.
Also, the reader/writer argument is just another watchmaker argument
Moral laws change, a lot. As humans we can interpret what is right and wrong more accurately over time. Moral laws are not fixed, hence they are not "created" by a god.
I have an issue with the "reading/writing" issue. Reading doesn't depend on "writers", it depends on the language it's written in...meaning you need something created by humans and agreed upon to mean a thing. So the roman alphabet I'm writing in - it's been agree to mean abc & xyz. So has the ampersand I just used. and the "quotes". So reading doesn't depend on writings only - it depends on HOW a thing is written, and in what...which is a Human construct.
@7:20 and you just made that argument. I need to keep watching before I comment.
I just wanna know who that woman in the thumbnail is lol. Well, and I think Patricia Churchland wrote a good book on this (doesn't require belief in elimanitive materialism) called Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition.