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@@zalman04 Yes-that’s exactly where the analogy finds its limit. It doesn’t render it incorrect, of course, but it is important to note that equating the book with reality means you can’t ‘leave’ the book to analyse it. Hence why I say that God is not an entity to be located within the book-and also hence why we have apophatic theology, to talk about the God who is ‘outside’ all language and conceptuality.

@@admoni. We live in reality, we perceive it with our senses, and we conceptualize what we perceive. You have an assumption that there is an aspect of reality that is inaccessible to us. Why?

@@zalman04 For the simple reason that all of the data by which we cognise the world - whether sense-based or rational - is conditioned and contingent. By that I mean that all thoughts or sense-impressions occur to us as particular features within a broader network of cognition, and so are both constituted by and depend upon other things to exist. If I perceive an apple, I perceive it as one small feature of a broader field of experience, one particular thing within the rest of the world that presents it to me. I have the table that the apple sits on, I have the air that surrounds it, I have the sound the wind might make as it blows past it. Moreover, the faculties by which I perceive it are also conditioned by my environment. My eyes exist as they do only because of millions of years of material evolution, and so determine the way in which I can perceive the apple. My brain is the same, and so determines the way in which I can cognise the apple and present it to myself in my mind. Everything in the world of my experience, including the faculties which work to present this world to me, is conjoined together in such a way that makes everything mutually defined and dependent. I couldn't perceive that apple without a mind that understands shape and form, space and size, colour and even taste; I couldn't perceive that apple without the rest of the world around it allowing for its existence in space and time. Nothing exists in such a way that is perfectly self-sufficient, perfectly explicable exclusively on its own terms, needing no reference to anything else. Anything that exists in space and time necessarily affects and is affected by everything else that exists in space and time, and everything in my mind that cognises it necessarily affects and is affected by the thing it cognises. And, if the whole world is both conditioned and contingent, then by definition the whole world depends upon something that is unconditioned and necessary. However, whilst many modern theists would simply argue that this means God is the unconditioned, necessary 'first being' that must exist at the start of creation, I see it as obvious that God cannot be 'a being' at all, because to be 'a being' you would need to be conditioned, part of that whole world of experience in just the same way as the apple, and so not God. Therefore God necessarily has to be transcendent of all the conceptual and linguistic categories by which we try to ascertain him. His 'Necessary Being' is not a thing we can grasp directly in our minds, in the same way that we can understand a cup, or a song, or a mathematical formula. In a very real sense, as certain mystics like John Scotus Eriugena and Angelus Silesius have said, God is 'nothing'. Literally no-thing, not-a-thing. Hence the old distinction that the Church Fathers often made: we can be certain 'that' God is, but we cannot know 'what' God is. I hope that wasn't too convoluted, but that's probably the best way I can describe it! The simple logic is: everything in the world and our minds is conditioned and contingent, therefore the necessary Ground of everything must be transcendent of the world - including our minds, and all the means they have to try and understand it.

Sapolsky would be a perfect example actually - he insisted in his recent Big Think interview that there’s ’not a crack’ in all material/biological causality in which to ‘insert’ free will. I absolutely agree with this, hence why I said that the fork in the road model is always a win for the determinist. But if we understand freedom not being something you do but rather the being of what you are - and that is Bergson’s claim - then we can’t dispel free will by way of material cause and effect, because it simply doesn’t apply to the freedom which resides in a different category altogether.

It's a bit of a struggle - my microphone picks up a lot of static so I have to put on dereverb etc. in editing which in turn takes down the sound. Do you think you'd prefer it louder but with more static? I'm not really sure what the audience prefers. Thank you for watching!

@@admoni. I think you can make some balance between noises and loudness. I personally isn't particulary sensetive to noises if they're not in exact same frequency and amplitude range speech is. Also if you can set your microphone closer then it is definitely worth to do so because the proximity matters to a human brain when it tries to recognise speech. You would be probably interested in some sound processing techniques. If so then learn about: gating, equalization, compression (single band, multiband), dynamic exciting, limiting. You do not really need a deep understanding -- just basic principles. There're also some fancy AI algorythms that can automagically improve speech sound very much. Like you're recording in your bath with water splashing and the AI magic makes it studio-sounding perfect.

@@Ma_X64 Thank you very much!

Mainly convenience, I think: although we certainly shouldn't think it transcultural or transhistorical, it happens to be a useful placeholder term to designate the various rites, doctrines, customs, etc. associated with 'Ultimate Reality' in various corners of human history.

@@admoni. The problem as I see it is it is rhetoric states use to domesticate alternative arrangements of power. It reifies this nebulous category.

Absolutely! I find it such a shame that institutional religion typically teaches its doctrines in a way that is actively opposed to mysticism - especially when mystical figures are everywhere in the great theistic traditions if you know where to look. Moralism can only take you so far, just as following a virtuous leader can only take you so far - it can teach you to behave, but not to find happiness. Real contentment lies within, in the Being that pervades and encompasses all things. So happy you enjoyed the video - thank you for watching!

Certainly complication can emerge from simple systems, but it's important not to subtly pass over what is clearly a categorical distinction: the transition from inert, non-intentional, mechanistic, objective units of matter to living, intentional, rational, subjective experience, where 'free will' happens to reside. This isn't something even possibly explicable by purely material means, I think.

@@admoni. I feel the same sometimes. But mostly i think, i’d edit your description down to “living subjective experience.” We are complex but i’m not convinced there is a rational element to human existence or that it is in this subjective experience that free will resides.

Absolutely. It's a complete category error.

I believe in God but have no interest in proving God's existence to anyone. In fact, I agree that God's existence is unprovable on our level. It's as if a cell in my body decided to prove to other cells the existence of this greater reality of me. They can't. And yet I exist. What's more, if my cells stop acting as if I existed, if they stop obeying "the commandments" of how to be a healthy cell, they'll turn into cancerous cells that live in an exploitative manner, grow uncontrollably, and lead to suffering and even death. Anyway, back to God. God is greater than the human mind, therefore can't be explained or proven by the human mind. However, humans can, and do, experience God in various ways. One very popular way is living without God, getting into a ton of s4it, becoming desperate, wanting to unlive oneself, and crying to this unprovable God, and having your life turned around completely, so that all of a sudden you get the true meaning of the word salvation. Something like that happened to me. When you get this sort of experience, you no longer care about someone else's intellectual games and exercises.

Metaphysics is what is philosophically derived from observations about the physical world. So-based on your suggestion that things ‘don’t exist’ if they ‘don’t appear to have any bearing on the material world’-your metaphysics is that of naturalism or materialism. You still have a metaphysics, just one that presumes all reality is matter. There are immense problems with that view on its own terms, but it’s important to clarify that ‘metaphysics’ as such doesn’t mean a sort of magic or superstition. It’s founded on basic logical principles like the fact that contingency demands necessity, for instance.

Good spot! I'll be sure to change it. Thank you for watching and happy Thursday.

As a rule of thumb, anything particular, delimited, or spatialised will be 'external'. Any specfic thing within experience. What is 'internal' is experience itself; that ocean or field which allows those particular things to be known.

Basically internal is how someone truly feels and external is the actual presentation of behaviors

I’m sorry if I wasn’t very clear on this point. The difference I’m elucidating is that between matter and mind. The latter is intentional, directed, rational, whilst the former is inert, mechanistic, and guided by nothing but antecedent physical causes. Even in an instance of advanced material complexity such as the brain, we cannot reasonably assert that intentionality-the intentionality needed to consider abstract rational problems and come to a conclusion-somehow magically pops into that mechanistic schema simply by way of matter’s inner causality. So yes-certainly there are activities in the brain that seem to be guided, but my point is that the only way you could even conceive of the rationale of something ‘leading us to answers’ is through the principle of intentionality, which obviously does not inhere within inert matter. The language of intentionality is smuggled into neurology without an actually explaining how it could possibly exist if we actually believe in a truly materialistic foundation for the brain. My claim of ‘randomness’ is based on what I perceive to be the impossibility of intentionality’s emergence by way of the acquisition of physical complexity. If you begin with basic, categorically non-intentional material units (atoms) and then build up to a brain, at no point-unless you are willing to take leave of those material units altogether-will you be able to justify the sudden introduction of intentionality, as though blind matter can now suddenly see and direct itself away from its antecedent causes. It’s like saying that if you give someone enough paper, they will finally be able to make a glass house. It is not a matter of incremental complexity but categorical transition. As such, it’s much easier (but incorrect) to simply assume that correlation = causation, and that neural firings correlating to thoughts means that thoughts can be entirely explained by them. But this would be to step over a complete chasm in the categorical nature of intentional mind and non-intentional matter. Thank you for watching!

I'd say there's little I can imagine that isn't affected by the suggestion that we don't have free will. From a pragmatic vantage it seems almost most important, perhaps above all for ethical behaviour, but also just in our general disposition toward life, in our self-understanding as living subjects rather than mere sacks of meat incidentally programmed to mistake themselves as alive. The way you relate to both yourself and other people can alter enormously with that change of belief.

​@@admoni. I might have been wired a bit different since I had difficulty with that sort of idea at the metaphysical level even as a little boy. Perhaps you can explain it to me how this idea seems to fundamental philosophically since I've always failed to believe in it. A struggle I always had as a boy is that I was bullied a lot, for example. I'm biracial and I grew up in school where I was teased and bullied a lot for it being the only one in that school. But as much as I would get angry and upset, I wanted to understand what made the bullies tick, and I started to learn even as a boy that bullies are often neglected or abused by their parents. So I'm admittedly a bit of a skewed type but I wanted to figure out how this works. I wanted to understand the cause behind it, if only so that when I became a parent (I am one now), I can minimize my probability of raising a bully myself. At least in its extremities, metaphysical free will doesn't give me confidence that my parenting will have any effect.

@@admoni. Is it to do with accountability? That's usually the number one point I see raised against my rejection of it. But to me, say we have a pet dog. And he poops on our carpet. To me it doesn't matter whether or not he is metaphysically free to do that or if it was inevitable. I still want to find a humane way to teach him not to poop on the carpet again because there's a constant here; I don't want to constantly find poop on my carpet. Also humane because I don't want to hurt him if I can help it. In the same way with a human being, if someone steals my belongings, I want to teach them however I can to return my belongings and not do it again if they can't learn for themselves. Ideally they would learn for themselves and hold themselves accountable and return my belongings to me without my intervention, but if they don't, I must intervene because I want my stuff back.

@@AntiGamer-de8vp It certainly wouldn't be the case that free will would magically and totally lift you completely out of the realm of conditioned causality. So if you raise your kid in a certain fashion, it will respond to its environment in a certain, probably predictable, way. The only alteration that free will makes is to remind us that this is not the whole story, and our being is not entirely explicable in terms of this material, deterministic causality. So, given you can teach people by classical conditioning, nothing about education that you mention would be threatened at all by free will. In fact, quite the opposite: if determinism were true, then the way you raise your child could not possibly be directed toward any particular end (such as wanting them to grow up to not be a bully), nor would their response be anything but the blind, mechanistic motion of material elements -- and so something over which your parenting has no real influence at all, certainly not the ability to direct their behaviour toward goodness. The entirety of your concern for the bullies, for your child, for the dog, for anything in the world, would be rendered incoherent by the acceptance of a model which reduces all behaviour to material mechanism, because your concern is predicated upon the assumption that the bully/child/dog can all turn one way or the other in their behaviour, and you would rather see them turn toward the 'good' way. So take note of how you implicitly move away from determinism and back into the realm of rational ends when you talk about your dog. The sentence 'I want to find a humane way to teach him' indicates a desire to choose between two possible ends (either inhumane or humane teaching) which are not simply determined by blind mechanism but judged and selected by a conscious rational agent. The only way that sentence makes sense at all is if you have freedom. This free rationality so foundationally obvious to us that we wouldn't be able to conceive of a reality where we don't have intentions and ends in our behaviours; and yet it is precisely free will that is needed to justify it.

Which also, by the way, is why Bergson would say your empathy for the bully is so admirable: it represents a greater act of freedom on your part, opening yourself up onto a fuller vantage of reality, capable of consciously reflecting on not just your own but another's experience, and so not simply acting impulsively based on an instinct of self-preservation.

Thank you for taking the time to leave such an insightful comment! Yes, I agree with you completely. I think a lot of what you're touching on is in the same region that I tried to parse in the video: that space between 'relative' and 'objective' morality. There's a way of recognising that the reality is more complex than simply reading a set of principles on a sheet of paper, whilst still recognising that there is a Good that exists independent of our personal wills and feelings to which we respond in our ethical behaviour.

​@@admoni. Cheers! I'm admittedly a little bit towards the Sam Harris camp. He makes the most sense to me as a STEM type illiterate in philosophy. I've tried to read people like Kant and Nietzsche and Plato and Aristotle and I find myself immediately at odds with their diagnosis of the nature of the universe and human beings given what I've learned about anthropology, psychology, etc. So it is very difficult for me to agree with a prognosis when everything I learned and find most utility in understanding disagrees so much with the underlying diagnosis. That said, where I disagree with Sam Harris is that he seems to see things like neuroscience as the answer. I don't put much stock into that. Actually I tend to put the most stock into some healthy degree of skepticism; some of the best things I've done that I consider at my moral best was to raise the question to a group of people so determined that what they are doing is right, "Wait, are we actually doing the right thing?" I'm allergic to people who seem so confident in knowing exactly what's right. I like to get the metaphorical second doctor's opinion, the third, etc -- before I settle on one that has been echoed the most and seems most supported by my research -- maybe a bit too much. But I'm allergic to people who seem so tunnel-visioned about what's right and wrong, since they seem to have lost the ability to ask questions, and I figure more questions are usually what avert the worst disasters.

@@AntiGamer-de8vp To be honest scepticism is becoming increasingly important in an age when people are being conditioned to remain within a cave of their own opinions. Especially if people around you are expecting you to have dead-set opinions: it's really a virtue to have philosophically.

@@fij715 You’re very kind! Thank you so much. I’ve actually been worried about the audio because I have a cheap mic which picks up a lot of static, so it’s encouraging to hear it’s good for listeners.

@@NightmareRex6 Very true. Only a being limited in time and space could be in need of another set of eyes.

@@softfeels5375 Thank you so much! Made my day to read a comment so kind!

Lol if all you are claiming is that according to your epistemology "God" exists as a metaphysical "concept" in the minds of men, then by all means have at it dear. If however you are claiming as FACT the ontological existence of a a specific subjective "God" and that we should ground our morality upon said "Gods" perceived nature/desires you best have something more than the usual apologetic arguments from ignorance and hearsay tales of magic in an old book to back it up. 😜

Morality is subjective, we set the rules HOWEVER that does NOT mean we cannot set objective rules about morality. Let me give you an analogy perhaps then you will understand........ Our metric reference standards for weights, distance ( kilometers, meters, centimetres ect ) was originaly a man made concept, arbitrarily concieved with no divine dictate involved. Yet once it becomes accepted and a pre- agreed consensus reached it functions perfectly. A "meter" is not some vague "about this big" concept that varies dependant on culture or God. We can OBJECTIVELY measure things "from within our pre-agreed metric reference framework" 😜 Morality is the cognitive process of differentiating between human intentions, decisions, and actions that are appropriate from those inappropriate. The recognition and evaluation of the consequences our choices have with regards to ourselves and others. Its is a tool/common reference standard conceptualised to measure and judge objective facts. In my earlier analogy the metric system was that tool/ common reference standard that we conceptualised to measure "distances" ( objective facts ) Now absent our metric system tool / reference standard those distances would still exist irrespective our our ability to measure them ( *THEY are the objective facts* ) the tool that is doing the measuring is a *"SUBJECTIVE ONE"* .... only from within a pre-agreed subjective and arbitrarily concieved framework can we make Objective statements about said "distances" If my moral measurement system ceased to exist the consequences of our actions and decisions with respect to the wellbeing of ourselves and others ( *objective factual reality* ) would still exist, irrespective of our inability to recognise and evaluate said consequences and thus differentiate between decisions and actions that are appropriate from the inappropriate with respect to the desired outcome of wellbeing. But the "measuring" of it is what defines "MORALITY" and that tool / common reference standard was arbitrarily and subjectively conceptualised. Our actions have real consequences ( *objective* ) But without the pre - agreed desired goal ( *subjective* ) we can NOT make a determination of what we *"SHOULD"* or *"OUGHT"* do or not do, we are unable to differentiate between human intentions, decisions, and actions that are appropriate from those inappropriate. If i hit someone they feel pain ( *objective fact* ) means nothing without first agreeing "we don't want people to feel pain" ( *subjective goal* ) only then can we say "I OUGHT not hit people"

@@trumpbellend6717 thank you for commenting! Superb handle as well. Importantly, that’s definitely not what I’m saying. As I say at 8:50, God is not a being amongst beings, not just some ‘subject’ who has his own desires, impulses, personality etc. In fact, that’s really the main misapprehension I try to clear out in the video. A lot of theists do think of God in this way, but the doctrine of omnipresence (to take one of many) becomes problematic when you think of God as just ‘some being’ that you have to listen and bow down to. It makes no sense to talk about how this being could be everywhere at once unless it was something already present in-indeed, was-Being itself. So I very much agree with your critique of this ‘subject’ God!

See also 5:16 onwards for my rebuttal of the God I think you’re criticising.

@@admoni. Please define the terms "morality" and "good" for us all...... does it relate to human wellbeing or suffering and how we treat each other ? Is it relative or absolute ? Objective or subjective, if objective then *NAME THE SPECIFIC STANDARD* ? What purpose does it serve ie what the goal of a moral system ? 🤔 If these basic questions are beyond you then please don't waste either my time or your own in further discussion

Thank you so much for watching!

How is morality required for logic? For something to be logical, it does not need to also be morally good.

@@Chidds because truth has a value judgement, over false

@@Chidds If you make a truth-claim (X is X), you are implicitly telling people, "you ought to affirm X is X". All truth-claims are underlied by the force of an "ought". You ought to be truthful and logical and reasonable

@@AshtonMohr1 A judgment about the accuracy of a conclusion has nothing to do with moral judgment. We assert an ought into logical judgments, but that is a reflection of the nature of humans not logic.

@@Chidds Were is logic? How do you know it exist?

paraphrasing you: Atheism cannot provide why there is something which transcends an objective good. I can define an objective good: humanity continues! Paul defined another objective good: humanity must not continue! The world must fundamentally change. Paul was wrong. The parousia did not happen. Now being wrong is not tragic. What is however obvious here is that i can define a top level good and yet still disagree with Paul. So maybe i should try another good: - everybody must die! - Paul: Jesus rose to incorruptibility, and that is an ideal Again Paul and i disagree! But the difference here is that Paul condems the creation as is, while i accept it as is. So Paul is in opposition to the creator while i am in accordance to causality, the prime creative principle. Again Paul was wrong. Now the question is: who is the atheist among us: is it me or is it the rebellous Paul? Transcending goods from a pseudo theistic faith system is obviously fraught with errors. My position is that creation is what it is. It's 100% deadly for each of us. But there are those who impose an ought on the creator. The creator was wrong or humans were so powerfull, but not in the case of Paul or christianity. So is eternal life an objective good? If it is, then it is a postulate against creation. If it is not, then reality transcends the end of life as objective good. And whether you call that creative principle god or causality does not matter at all. What matters is your attitude against that principle.

The middle ground... How do we come to the conclusion that there can be middle grounds? I already showed that there is an internal split in the theistic realm as in the atheistic realm. The problem is not in defining superior creative principles. But to resolve the paradoxes. and there are varying schools which try to resolve the paradox differently. I can come up with a statement and then claim that it is objectively true. - Any moral statement or action must support the flourishing of morally enabled beings, else that statement or action is called amoral or immoral. - this presupposes that morality can only exists through morally enabled beings. Application: By that definition general antinatalism cannot be called a moral position. But how can i do that? It's based on the idea that a good should preserve a good. If morality is a good, then morality should preserve itself. But if morality is not a good? General Antinatalists only seem to use morality as a commodity. It's a good to them beyond the justification for the existence of morally enabled beings and the same sense as a gun can be a good. So i can make an absolute moral statement based on philosophical concepts. But is that really grounded? I actually don't trust my ability here. But it certainly would get a broad support because it sound's nice. At some point in the future morality will end on earth, and it's clear that there is no principle which respects this philosophical proposition. So your middle ground is wishfull thinking. And you can ask yourself whether a dice or causality motivated it.

​@@iwilldi Our actions have real consequences ( *objective* ) But without the pre - agreed desired goal ( *subjective* ) we can NOT make a determination of what we *"SHOULD"* or *"OUGHT"* do or not do, we are unable to differentiate between human intentions, decisions, and actions that are appropriate from those inappropriate. If i hit someone they feel pain ( *objective fact* ) means nothing without first agreeing "we don't want people to feel pain" ( *subjective goal* ) only then can we say "I OUGHT not hit people"

No dear, we can't stop talking about how absurd it is to believe our moral status the result of a talking snake convincing a rib woman and mud figurine man to eat a magic fruit against the wishes of an invisible God called Yahweh 🤭

@@trumpbellend6717 Yeah, you prefer faith in miracles like "nothing" exploding and becoming everything. Because in your world "nothing" is highly explosive. You prefer the mercy of a right to terminate a little one so you can swap fluids with strangers, maybe finish college or to just have a little more extra cash. Tough luck little offspring, if Mom and Dad pretend God doesn't exist, it's the religion of "survival of the fittest." Your religion tells you to esteem yourself as fair, opened minded and wise when you accept a man's right to use another man's solid waste/methane gas disposal system as a makeshift vagina. You believe lightning striking chemicals created life. You didn't see it, you have faith it occurred. DNA is billions of digitally coded instructions on how to build, repair, maintain and reproduce an organism and your religion assures you that time, chance, natural selection and mutations did it. Yep, you've got a long list of wonderful fruits that you bear for the sake of your beliefs. Luke 6:44-45 For each tree is known by its own fruit. Indeed, figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor grapes from brambles. The good man brings good things out of the good treasure of his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil treasure of his heart. For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

@@trumpbellend6717 They hid my reply under "Newest."

@@Dark-Sentences Maybe Western atheists! I am from Japan and we are mostly atheist here, but we aren't that militant and rebellious type. We just don't talk about God much at all. It is considered rude in my culture to infringe upon other people's religious beliefs. We keep it out of the media, politics, and regular discourse. I just wanted to point this out since we aren't a trivial minority -- we have ~125 million people living here, and most atheists. I hear many people talking about how atheists are and I don't think that applies to us in the East nearly as much. For example, we are very conservative despite our atheism.

@@AntiGamer-de8vp Since you will explain these things, then please answer a few more questions. 1) What happens to you atheists when you die. 2) How did the world come into being? 3) How did life come about? 4) When either good fortune or calamity come are they the result of any unseen powers? 5) Do you speak to ancestors? 6) Do you know there is no God and how? 7) Are there any spiritual entities or energies that exist but can't be seen?

Hello friend, Would you say that a mass killer's actions can be considered morally appropriate? If such a person is found guilty of murder in a court of law, is this judgment based on objective moral truths, or merely societal opinions? In other words, is the condemnation of their actions rooted in something universally wrong, or is it simply a reflection of subjective moral standards? Is morality a free-for-all? Are some things more appropriate than others? (this is not a debate this is a discussion)

again my friend, true and false have a value judgment are they subjective as well?

@AshtonMohr1 Please ask one question at a time. I will gladly answer each and every one.

@@Theo_Skeptomai Ok, I don't really care about my first question, the answer is obvious to what you have stated. You say morality is subjective (I am agnostic so I have to somewhat agree) do you really live by this?

@@AshtonMohr1 Yes. I haven't any choice but to live by this fact.

@@2msystems740 Hello my friend-I happened to have touched on this critique in the video. Have a look at 5:30 onward. It’s important to ask whether you’re really being charitable to the position at hand, rather than just attacking a strawman.

@@admoni. Didn't get that far, didn't need to.

@@2msystems740 I would recommend listening to the opinions of other people. It’s an important life skill and makes the discussion of these kinds of topics far more interesting for you. Plus in just the same way I imagine you’d want theists to listen to your opinion rather than just dismissing it out of hand.

@@admoni. Agree, but thought your opinions were something new. It just regurgitation.

@@2msystems740 Based on your first comment, my opinion is new. If you understand theism to be nothing but the belief in some invisible man in the sky, just the same kind of belief as you’d have in big foot or a fairy, then that’s precisely what I’m trying to distance myself from.

@@williamoarlock8634 in many cases I have to admit yes. There is a large number that often do just treat God like king of the world, powerful man in the sky. Alas.

@@admoni. 'God is spirit' being the windbag John Lennox answer and 'spirit' is also non-existent as far as I'm concerned.

@@Atheistfromthemoon thank you for commenting! Interested to hear why you think theism isn’t a reasonable position.

@@admoni. because no evidence exists to back it up. Only arguments and assumptions are possible when rationalizing theism. Unfortunately arguments and assumptions without tangible evidence is a weak stance.

@@Atheistfromthemoon I’m curious as to what this means. Arguments, using logic, are weak? It’s pretty clear that not all that exists can be ascertained empirically - science determines true statements about the physical world, but ‘truth’ itself is clearly not something you can measure empirically or scientifically. You surely wouldn’t say that truth doesn’t exist (some science that would be!) so you’d have to admit something escapes empirical observation but is clearly existent.

@@admoni. you’re adding things not necessary to my argument. I never said anything about truth. Am talking about arguments and assumptions with no evidence. You can argue and assume about something without evidence and that thing can still be true. But it doesn’t mean I need to listen to anything you say.

@@admoni. and 99.9% of things science can show have tangible effects and evidence of its existence. Gravity has no physical form that can be held and observed . IT’s effects are the only factor that we have. But it’s 100% predicable and testable. I know that if I drop something it falls towards the earth. Barring some unforeseen circumstances this will happen no matter what.

@@maha-madpedo-gayphukumber1533 I love Vedanta. Although my bhakti is Christian in nature rather than Vaishnava, my metaphysics really are very similar to Vishishadvaita. And the main Vedantic texts of the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, and Brahma Sutras are some of the most important books I’ve ever read

@@Lucifersphoton Thank you for watching and for your kind comment!

Thank you! You're very kind. If you have any ideas about a topic in religion/philosophy/theology you'd like to see covered then I'm more than happy to take suggestions.

@@admoni. Cover the errors of secular Humanism/Secular "Morals", the delusion that morals exist without God. Use Hume's Is/ought problem.

Hi there! Yes, I definitely agree that if you're claiming your god to be just one superior/perfect god amongst many other possible gods, then you'll need to substantiate why you believe that. But the beauty of the likes of Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Judaism, Hinduism, etc. is that all of them are generally talking about the same infinite Reality, albeit under different and contradicting forms of revelation.

Hi - I'm curious as to why you've decided that all knowledge is valid only by the measure of a scientific standard. Even that claim itself is clearly not scientific. There are many basic questions that cannot be answered according to a scientific standard. So I wonder whether you might have a look at some of the presuppositions entailed in your thought.

I am intrugued that you cannot demonstrate that any god thing has ever existed with at least some valid and verified evidence. You also forgot to demonstrate that anything supernatural ever existed. You are simply defining some god thing into existence. That is a completely circular argument and pointless. You keep making unsupported assertions as if they had any relationship to what is true. Do you care if what you are posting is actually true?

@@niblick616 I can only assume that by valid and verified evidence that you mean scientific-empirical evidence. To try and show you that this does not exhaustively account for things that exist, I’d like you to explain how you can prove that truth exists using a scientific experiment.

@@admoni. What other sort of valid and verified evidence is there? Can you demonstrate anything else exists in our shared reality? Truth is what comports to reality. Reality is what my dog demonstrably exists in and is confirmed by multiple independent corroboration or MIC. Reality does not include anything supernatural and nobody has ever demonstrated that anything other than the natural has ever existed. I'd like you to explain how you can prove that truth exists outside the natural world. You have defined an anonymous god thing into existence in a presuppositional manner and you have not provided a complete and self-consistent description of what you are calling 'god'. I invite you to do so. Notably, you have also not provided a simple list of that thing's supposed attributes and capabilities. Without any attributes and capabilities, it does not exist in our reality. Is your variety of a god thing, a thinking agent that interacts with the observable universe in any detectable way?

Thank you for commenting! 1) This would be a conclusion you’re only forced into if you cling (and certainly many religious people unfortunately do this) to a radically exclusivistic theism; and even then you would be hard pressed to explain why God himself varies from tradition to tradition rather than claims about his revelation. I struggle to take seriously anyone who really thinks that Islam and Christianity, for instance are literally talking about two different ‘Gods’, rather than both assuming the same existence of ‘God’-an unconditioned, infinite ground of Being-and only then positing theological amendments based on revelation (like the Trinity) after the fact. At most that could be a disagreement about the nature of God, not the positing of two different Gods. Same goes for every major theistic tradition. 2) I’m not seeing why the transition from causality to sufficient reason would change anything for the atheist objector. In both cases, the principle-of requiring a prior cause or a sufficient reason-is derived from the nature of contingent existence (defined by dependence on that which is other than yourself). So in both cases, we are in need of a necessary ground-not just a being sitting immortally in the middle of the contingent cosmos, but Being transcendent of it, which would prevent an infinite regression of contingent relationships supposedly accounting for their own existence, which is by definition impossible.

we could ask the question why God exist is it were not for creation itself existing, insomuch as is there were no thing but God his existence would be null, however because creation exist it alone is in need of sufficient cause its cause being explained by the fact that it cannot have causal power proper to itself. So, I answer that to ask for a purely causal power to cause the universe is not vain as it is not in need of a cause due to the fact that our universe exist and needs a sufficient unchanging cause.

nevertheless i appreciate the effort you put in the video: good sound, good image quality, good slicing, no annoying music,etc...

@@dracaufeu44 Hi there! Thank you for taking the time to watch and give feedback. It’s much appreciated. I’d be curious to hear why you think the arguments are weak/based on preaching rather than thinking. I’ve tried to use those two arguments (used by Dawkins, Hitchens, etc.) at the outset to highlight the primary misunderstanding that lies behind New Atheism: namely, that God is just a being amongst beings, presiding over a ‘celestial North Korea’ (Hitchens) contained as a discrete entity within the immanent fold of existence. With the change of metaphor-from dominos to light-I tried to elucidate something more faithful to the theisms of classical traditions, and then reiterated how the misunderstanding might be clarified by a reading of Dawkins’ critique of Aquinas’ viae. Although, being a YT video, it lacks the rigour of an academic essay, I don’t think I’ve necessarily neglected to make a case responding to issues identified in New Atheist rhetoric. But again-thank you so much for engaging with the channel. Hope you return for future videos. All the best!

@@admoni. i don't really have the time to answer in detail but i will say shortly that i think: maybe in an attempt to disprove new atheism altogether (also maybe driven by ideology) you essentialize the "new atheistic ideology" to provocative catchphrases (that the new atheists are guilty of uttering way too often, maybe in an attempt to sound provocative). But really the New Atheists idelogy is nothing new: it is an aggregate of positivism (1800s) -or even you could argue logical positivism (early 1900s) + skepticism (even older than the former). admittedly these ideas are not very fashionable philosophical discourse in academia (to say the least) but they do still require research to counter. all the additional claims (which are a lot of what their arguments consist of) that new atheists make rely on ethical/ generally epistemological/historical points that are also generally valid. anyway i suscribe, curious to see what you'll do next

Hello. I am an atheist. I define atheism as suspending any acknowledgment as to the reality of any particular god until sufficient credible evidence is presented. My position is that *_I currently have no good reason to acknowledge the reality of any god._* And here is why I currently hold to such a position. Below are 11 facts I must consider when evaluating the claim made by certain theists that a particular god exists in reality. To be clear, these are not premises for any argument which _concludes_ there to be no gods. These are simply facts I must take into account when evaluating the verity of such a claim. If any of the following facts were to be contravened at a later time by evidence, experience, or sound argument, I would THEN have good reason to acknowledge such a reality. 1. I have never been presented with a functional definition of a god. 2. I personally have never observed a god. 3. I have never encountered any person who has claimed to have observed a god. 4. I know of no accounts of persons claiming to have observed a god that were willing or able to demonstrate or verify their observation for authenticity, accuracy, or validity. 5. I have never been presented with any _valid_ logical argument, which also introduced demonstrably true premises that lead deductively to an inevitable conclusion that a god(s) exists in reality. 6. Of the many logical syllogisms I have examined arguing for the reality of a god(s), I have found all to contain a formal or informal logical fallacy or a premise that can not be demonstrated to be true. 7. I have never observed a phenomenon in which the existence of a god was a necessary antecedent for the known or probable explanation for the causation of that phenomenon. 8. Several proposed (and generally accepted) explanations for observable phenomena that were previously based on the agency of a god(s), have subsequently been replaced with rational, natural explanations, each substantiated with evidence that excluded the agency of a god(s). I have never encountered _vice versa._ 9. I have never knowingly experienced the presence of a god through intercession of angels, divine revelation, the miraculous act of divinity, or any occurrence of a supernatural event. 10. Every phenomenon that I have ever observed appears to have *_emerged_* from necessary and sufficient antecedents over time without exception. In other words, I have never observed a phenomenon (entity, process, object, event, process, substance, system, or being) that was created _ex nihilo_ - that is instantaneously came into existence by the solitary volition of a deity. 11. All claims of a supernatural or divine nature that I have been presented have either been refuted to my satisfaction or do not present as _falsifiable._ ALL of these facts lead me to the only rational conclusion that concurs with the realities I have been presented - and that is the fact that there is *_no good reason_* for me to acknowledge the reality of any particular god. I have heard often that atheism is the denial of the Abrahamic god. But denial is the active rejection of a substantiated fact once credible evidence has been presented. Atheism is simply withholding such acknowledgment until sufficient credible evidence is introduced. *_It is natural, rational, and prudent to be skeptical of unsubstantiated claims, especially extraordinary ones._* I welcome any cordial response. Peace.

@@Theo_Skeptomai Hi Theo - thank you for your comment. You've written very eloquently. I'll see if I can offer any valuable responses. So, the crucial claim I was trying to present in the video is that we need to clarify what we mean when we say the words 'in reality' or 'exists' when talking about God. Facts 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, and (I believe - correct me if I'm wrong) 11 all presuppose that when we are speaking about God, we are speaking about something that would be empirically observable in some shape or form. Now, I imagine this is simply what follows from your own epistemology, but it's important to recognise that it's not what major theistic traditions (by which I mean the likes of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, Hinduism, the Baha'i Faith, and many more) claim in their theologies. All assert the transcendence, invisibility, and incorporeality of God, as opposed to his being the kind of material agent (a Man in the Sky) you might imagine in a Michelangelo painting. This is why in the video I echoed D.B. Hart's example of God as being an author of a book. If we are seeking to find 'observable evidence' of Charles Dickens exclusively from within the pages of Bleak House, then we will come up short, because he is not a thing that can be observed within its pages. Dickens is not hiding on page 73, waiting to jump out at us if we just look close enough. So, as I said, we could actually have an exhaustive empirical knowledge of the book, and conclude as a result that Dickens never existed because he's not hiding in the book. Which is to say, we could have an exhaustive empirical knowledge of the material constituents of 'reality' and still would have no evidence on that account that God exists. However, this is obviously an absurd conclusion, because its hypothesis is incorrect from the outset. Dickens being the author of the book does not suggest he would be contained as an object within its pages; in fact, it necessarily suggests the opposite. And so, once we recognise that Dickens is the (to use a Christian term) 'Logos' of the book, its logic, its reason, its essence, its 'cause' (note how that word is being used here), then we can see that, contrary to our previous conclusion, in Bleak House suddenly becomes evidence for the existence of Charles Dickens. Nothing in that book could exist without him. We don't need something supernatural and extraneous to the book to swoop down and prove it to us, and we would be silly to have to wait for such a thing. In fact, whether or not that did happen, it wouldn't add anything to the state of affairs: Dickens would still undeniably be the author even if there were nothing supernatural added to the book. Natural existence is all that's needed. So these facts may be reasons to be sceptical of (as I distinguish in the video) lower case 'g' gods which people might believe roam somewhere in the cosmos and (per facts 7 and 8) cause natural events, but they do not pertain to the God of classical theism. In fact, the next video I'm releasing will address (and criticise) the inverse of New Atheism, which I take to be Intelligent Design Theory. I don't hold arguments based on the 'God of the gaps' logic in very high esteem, for all the same reasons that I've just given above. I would argue just as fiercely against any theist who tried to claim that evidence for God can be found in discrete unexplainable natural events. This is just like saying that 'Charles Dickens definitely exists because we haven't been able to turn over this page of the book yet: therefore, he must be hiding behind it.' It's very bad reasoning, and science will always, sooner or later, prove victorious over it. And this relates to fact 9 too: whether supernatural entities like angels/miracles etc. actually exist and act on the world isn't all that relevant for my metaphysics: I believe naturalism is false in either case. But I share your scepticism when it comes to a lot of those claims, and think they can only be of use on a personal level, as something you experience yourself, but not as a universalisable argument. As to fact 1, I'll try my meagre best: God is what we call the infinite, unconditioned, immutable, present, necessary act of Being that sustains and pervades all conditioned, mutable, temporal, contingent existence, both absolutely transcendent of and absolutely immanent to all things in the cosmos, the original source and final end of creation. Facts 5 and 6 are very interesting, and I'm sure we'd go back and forth a great deal over certain arguments. I'll just set out a valid deductive argument that I find persuasive here, taken from the Stanford Encyc. of Philosophy: 1. A contingent being (a being such that if it exists, it could have not-existed) exists. 2. All contingent beings have a sufficient cause of or fully adequate explanation for their existence. 3. The sufficient cause of or fully adequate explanation for the existence of contingent beings is something other than the contingent being itself. 4. The sufficient cause of or fully adequate explanation for the existence of contingent beings must either be solely other contingent beings or include a non-contingent (necessary) being. 5. Contingent beings alone cannot provide a sufficient cause of or fully adequate explanation for the existence of contingent beings. 6. Therefore, what sufficiently causes or fully adequately explains the existence of contingent beings must include a non-contingent (necessary) being. 7. Therefore, a necessary being (a being such that if it exists, it cannot not-exist) exists. 8. The universe, which is composed of only contingent beings, is contingent. 9. Therefore, the necessary being is something other than the universe. Thank you for your time and thought! Kind regards.

Likewise! Thank you for such a kind comment. Of course we can chat online if you want to talk about anything related to the videos!

@@admoni. Yeah you're welcome.... nice to meet you 😔