*Two disclaimers* I think you're off on the wrong foot. All arguments are "this way" on both sides of the debate. All arguments about gods and afterlifes rely on expressing the ideas in a way that feels intuitive. That doesn't make it an emotional argument. It's simply an acknowledgement that none of us can possibly know and we do have to go with what feels comfortable. There is, and cannot be, a purely logical argument that means anything to anyone.
Bro if you aren't smart enough to understand the debate between objective morality vs subjective than that's on you. Like you assume as much if not more about the nature of that argument than you claim those who make it do. Point is simple, if the nature of all human consciousness can be limited to the subjective nature of our experience, than you have the proof for nothing objective. Because all we have is the subjective interactions with the world. A concept atheists seems inherently unable to comprehend. Like science is not based upon the subjective nature of the universe science is based PURELY upon the human consciousness and its observations of the universe. Saying morality is subjective by nature just means you have no understanding about the nature of humanity and are fine with the destruction of one species because that is literally what your philosophy will lead to. Atheists- "Nothing happens after you die not matter how evil you are nor no matter what you do. So you can literally do whatever you want and at the end of the day the same thing will happen to you as did to the nicest person on the planet even with you worshipped Hitler and murdered people!" The problem you have is that you don't seem to have basic understanding of what shit YOUR own personal philosophy is. Your mad that is an accurate description of what you think and it makes atheists look like short sighted children who have no sense of anything besides they concept ls of superiority... CUZ THATS WHAT YOU GUYS ARE!
I notice that most arguments for God only argue for the existence of a creator deity. So even if we accept an argument for God, they still have to make an argument for why it is the one described in the bible.
It's because the only god that could possibly exist is the one the person making the argument believes in, of course! (sarcasm) I have actually heard some Islamic apologetics (from the more moderate side) that argue that nothing in the Quran is falsified by science, whereas the Bible and several other holy texts are proven false through concepts like evolution. (I've never read the Quran, but from that argument, I'd guess it lacks a creation narrative that's explicit enough that it's clearly not evolution.) Also, I will note, the person in question was making very clear distinctions between the teachings of the Quran itself as opposed to cultural traditions, interpretive books, etc that are not the teachings of the Prophet, which is a notable qualifier. He suggested that the oppression of women in many Islamic countries, for instance, stems from pre-Islamic Arabic traditions. (But, again, I've not read the book, I don't know if that's true or just his reading of it.)
Exactly. Even weirder when I know more about the Christian god, not that powerful because he doesn't do the most effiecient things like creating a flood instead of just Thanos snapping people, has human emotions despite being constantly hailed as "God works mysteriously", etc. and etc.
@@franciscodetonne4797 It's even more interesting when you look into the history of the Biblical god. He was originally a war/storm god that got incorporated into the Canaanite pantheon as a son of the chief Canaanite god El before inheriting the top spot in the pantheon and El's wife Athirat (Asherah) before religious reforms. He even took on the characteristics and attributes of the Canaanite gods El and Baal.
I remember seeing Hitchens mention this, he said something to the effect of "you can perhaps get to deism, but you'll still have all the work ahead of you to get to Christianity" (highly paraphrased as I can't recall the quote)
The fact that that guy said "We are the ultimate unplanned pregnancy" is ironic because he still can't give up the notion that we're special. We aren't the ultimate unplanned pregnancy, we're just one of many, many unplanned pregnancies.
@@themightybrew3979 Exactly (it's not ironic), because deep down, there is a part of him that still wants to believe, and really, there is nothing wrong with that. I hope he finds his way back to his faith.
Implying that we're like an unplanned pregnancy = our lives have no meaning is also kind of gross. Pretty sure I know a few people who came from unplanned pregnancies who'd take issue with that. Sure, we're accidental. But now we exist and we get to exist and have feelings and complex thoughts and make meaning for our lives. We're not the ultimate unplanned pregnancy but I think it's a kinda rad one.
It's interesting to me that, upon realizing and accepting that I was not a Christian anymore, I didn't despair. There was no existential crisis for me, and I'd been an avowed Christian for over 40 years.
You are probably in the minority. I was raised Catholic so dropping out wasn't a big deal because most Catholics are in a different category than the fundamentalist christians. I think for most of them it's a very long and complicated process.
Same. I transitioned from like a casually Christian family deal to a more animistic view before finally settling into agnosticism. Never in that process did I have a moment where the realization truly upset me in any way
I agree. That for many it is apparently a big deal, especially within fundamentalist strains of Christianity because the indoctrination is so thick and the community often fairly tight. I think individual personality plays a role as well as the kind of exposure says individual will have to alternative viewpoints and evidence. To that end, reflecting on my own experiences it's probably not surprising that I walked away and that it wasn't jarring to my psyche.
For myself, I was raised in a fundamentalist home, but my parents were also divorced, so I was also exposed to my father's angry, reactionary atheism. And on my own as a young adult I talked with people of various beliefs and opinions. I tend to be very logical, realistic, and sometimes pragmatic. I lived with cognitive dissonance for years. It just got to a point
Hi..... 60-year-old guy here and academic .... I am a big fan and have followed your videos for quite some time ....I am a former christian but a theist in my own way and appreciate all of your arguments and thoughtful comments. The injury that christians cause in the inquisitive is painful to contemplate, but not unexpected. You are extremely respectful and kind to your antagonists and make so many good points - all who believe in free thought and kindness should be in your camp - keep up the good work!
That's because, honestly, how could you argue for the existence of a deity? I say that as a Christian, by the way. The existence or non-existence of a deity is something way beyond the realm of argument.
@@doloreslehmann8628 If the existence of deities is so far outside the realm of argumentation, what is it that compels so many theists to place so much confidence and passion in its claims? Would it not, instead, be rational to withhold confidence until existence has been demonstrated? I think it's exactly what Drew has described: Many theists are attracted to the emotional reassurances of theism's premises rather than the rational soundness of its conclusions.
@@sharpienate On the one hand, yes, the claims you make about the details of what you believe should be rational and conclusive in themselves. But on the other hand, the existence or non-existence of a deity, while it's clearly possible to argue about it, is nothing that can be resolved by arguing. You may have good arguments on both sides, but they don't demonstrate or prove anything. You'll never reach the point where there's only one conclusion left to be drawn. But that is valid for many things in life. You always have to make decisions without knowing all the facts. Always. So you just go for what has the most appeal and makes the most sense for you and hope for the best. In the end, the decisive question is not whether what you believe is true. It's whether you are true to what you believe. The truth of it will unfold along the way by the kind of person you become.
Sometimes an argument about a deity's plausibility to exist can lead to all sorts of unexpected examinations about how that plausibility is established in some, while revealed to be incoherent in concept (only certain deific concepts are incoherent when they are fully presented). Why the belief exists despite there being no direct compelling reason to believe is another subject that can be directly resolved by debate and examination of things like evidence & epistemology. I appreciate your criticism of debating deific existence. Keeping it confined to only argumentation about the deity's extant nature or lack thereof has ultimately struck me as narrow & incurious. Detached from how belief functions, how various religious communities inspire belief, and how the belief is maintained or discarded outside (or even within) different religious communities. All these parts of social interaction are removed for the sake of simplicity. The process of convincing one another to understand and agree robustly or disagree robustly has far more utility. I find it hollow to skip past talking about how criteria for belief is established within an individual (but apparently not in other individuals) while engaging in discussions that are narrow enough to resolve nothing about belief beyond the fact that certain claims are accepted.
@@doloreslehmann8628 There are no "two sides" to a discussion over supernatural existence claims. Claimants stand alone in their assertions and their audience stands ready to measure any evidence against a rational framework of reality. A free-thinking rational audience holds no belief in an existence claim UNTIL it can be adequately demonstrated with valid evidence. The absence of confidence in an unsupported claim is not the "other side" and it's not "anti-belief". Withholding belief in spurious and unsupported claims is the safe and rational behavior of a mature mind. Healthy and mature minds do it all the time with claims that do not already have a built-in emotional appeal. However...if you presuppose the validity of an existence claim because its validity will give you some emotional or existential comfort, then yes, I suppose it might appear there are "two sides" with good arguments. But, unfortunately, that betrays a misunderstanding of the rhetorical circumstances.
@@nati0598 Not at all. I see it a bit like we are trapped by our own intelligence. I do believe that humans are antropocentric in our comprehension of the world. Like,, we are so specialized that we can't easily comprehend what other intelligences might be like.
@@misteraskman3668 I get your point but you just used 'unique' and that's kinda the wrong word for it I think. Because that implies that other 'unique' intelligences aren't specialized and can comprehend others unlike us who are.
A guy asked me what God could do to prove he existed. I told him this: "Every Christmas, everyone is teleported to the desert, where they are arrayed around a 10-mile-tall God. God makes a speech -- orders, complaints, advice, etc. People hear the speech in their preferred languages. Everyone is teleported back home, where they find that their clothes are now pure white, and all their medical issues are healed. Everyone also now has transcripts of God's presentation, in their preferred languages, inscribed into sheets of pure platinum. The sheets are EXACTLY 8.500000 inches by 11.0000000 inches, to the limits of precision allowed by the size of platinum atoms. Satellite photos of the desert clearly show the 8 billion sets of footprints, and the one enormous set in the middle, and visitors to the spot hear (and can record) the sound of an angelic choir year-round." Of course, he told me God doesn't do public appearances anymore. I asked him why he had asked such a stupid question, if he knew God wouldn't care about my answer anyway. He gave up at that point.
You might try this one: let YHWH appear in the dreams of all creationists simultaneously and tell them to accept evolution theory. The dream must be convincing enough that at least 95 % obeys.
@Steven Scott at that point i'd tell them: "Okay, you've asked me and i've answered, now go ask your god WHY he doesn't `do public appearances anymore`... and please only come back after he answers you. And you might want to keep in mind that ANY answer from your god SHOULD somehow be good enough to convince me, shouldn't it?"
@Sahanda yumurta In the west the word 'Muslim' has a muddled meaning because it can either refer to the people who are members of Islamic religions and it can also refer to people who live, or have heritage in the middle-east. So many times the conversation about Islam devolves into racism against every Middle-eastern person. That's why sometimes people jump the gun when someone talks against Islam and assumes that you are talking against the entire community.
@@valdavis7461 to which your referring to? I'm interested about how you can come to that conclusion. Many thing cannot be proven but there must be some sort explaining behind it, even then that explanation either lost in time or exist in the future which i cannot say. But my take on it is, if i believe 80% of it have explanation the rest must have well, maybe not in my lifetime unfortunately.
I was in a debate recently w/ a younger Christian and it blew his mind when i told him "we really aren't better than anything else. We just exist differently" Edit - Big fan of your channel. I inspire to have that calmness you exude here. Thank you for existing. Have a good day 😁
I was watching a call in show, where the host told the caller that if all humans suddenly disappeared, there would be zero impact on the universe. The caller couldn't formulate a response. The call ended shortly after.
@@tirebiter4009 I mean, there would be, even if a minuscle and almost laughable one, but there would be atleast a minimal impact. And we can say so because we distinguish between an "universe with humans" and an "universe without humans". If human "existence" or "non-existence" had absolutely no impact in the universe, then we would not distinguish between the two possibilities, as "humans" would be a meaningless variable. But then we could not really say about an "universe without humans", just as we could not say about an "universe with humans", which would make the argument presented by the host pointless. Thus, if we are to distinguish between an "universe with humans" and an "universe without humans", we would need to consider "humans" as a variable, even if a minimally relevant one, but still linguistically relevant. Reality can only be said to be in relation to subjects, as reality is phenomenologically reproduced, or we could say, experienciated, by these subjects. And if we are to consider what we call "humans" as subjects, then reality can only be said to be in relation to "humans" as subjects. Thus, "humans" as subjects are important. We need to consider, however, what is "human" and "non-human".
@@andg2984 In the show I had watched, the caller believed that humans were the most favored creation by god and had a special place in the universe. The host quickly dispelled that thought. Do an Internet search for "The Six Million-Mile View of Earth and Moon". It is a photo taken by the Juno probe when it was only 6 million miles away. The earth and moon appear as two small dots in it. That's where all 8 billion humans live. If the sun was the size of a basketball, the earth would be about the size of a bb and be over 80 feet away. The next nearest star would also be basketball sized, and be 5 miles away. The solar system has a diameter of 12 trillion miles (including the oort cloud). The earth is about 0.000003% of the total mass of the solar system. Our solar system compared to the galaxy is smaller than a grain of sand on a large beach. Our galaxy compared to the universe is smaller than a grain of sand on the Sahara Desert. If humans disappeared today, the universe would take no notice.
@Carinaud Ricardo I think I mention in one or two posts that it has to do with radical fundamentalist christians who loudly proclaim that the whole universe was created for the benefit of good, christian humans. Which, by the way, accounts for less than a third of all the people on the planet. It could be less than 1% according to many christian sects. Their delusions by themselves should not be more than a source of amusement to people that realize that our race, our planet, our solar system, our galaxy are completely inconsequential to the universe as a whole. You rightly point out that humans exist to serve each other. I couldn't agree more. But that's a different topic from whether the universe is aware of us, or cares if we exist or not. The unamusing part of all this is these radical christians feel it is their duty to decide for everybody else that their beliefs need to be enacted into law as christian nationalism. And they are tenacious in getting into powerful positions to make it happen. That's when it starts getting scary.
Especially with the fine-tuning argument. This is absolutely based on an unspoken premise that somehow `we are special` and had reality been any different we wouldn't exist, therefore God. There never seems to be any acknowledgement that had those constants been different, perhaps something even more amazing than us would have come to be. Though, not to be too condescending about it, but that mentality makes sense to someone who believes that we are not only created in the image of an all powerful creator, but that we are `inheritors to its kingdom,` however you interpret that. To that person, sure, we're the most important thing in the universe or any universe you could conceive of, so the fine-tuning argument makes perfect sense.
There are many rational refutations of the fine-tuning argument: - We can only see this universe. You can't calculate probabilities if the number of observations is 1. - If an event is not absolutely impossible then the probability of it happening, given enough time, is 1. - We have no validated theory of the earliest moments of the universe, so we don't know how these constants came about, or how variable they are. - The probability that the constants enable life, given the fact that there is someone pondering them, equals 1. - "Life" has been poorly defined. Can you imagine a swirling cloud of gas having consciousness through some atomic process? If so, we can't really calculate the probability of something so vague.
We can see how a created world with the human focus would actually look like with addictive computer game worlds, where you resurrect regularly at your last safepoint, can't target other players or townpeople with any weapons and alterate your outfit and looks. Fly to your job with your pet dragon and go to adventures. This is where huge companies spend millions of cash to psychology teams to make it more addictive for humans to emerge into the second better life with unicorn friends and where you can fly around and when you kill a deer it respawns just again. This is an actual created world for human centristic states. Our world is nothing alike. Humans are indeed just 1 animal species and when tomorrow an astroid would hit the earth and kill all bigger lifeforms - like once the dinos - we would be gone.
as an atheist, I value my life more than I ever have, and I relish in the ability to make my own meaning of my life. the existence of life, as far as we know, is rare across the cosmos. that fact makes me thankful that I get to experience consciousness for the short time I have to exist. to me, that's really beautiful. I got a one in a million chance to be me in this present moment.
Commenting on "as far as we know, is rare across the cosmos" ...the far we know is not far at all, considering the vastness of space. It's like looking for birds in the next room and not seeing one, stating birds are rare on this planet. Light speed is way too slow. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, one in 200 billion others, has a 52000 light years radius and it has a few hundred billion stars to observe. Meaning, most civilizations out there looking at our planet, will be seeing our own planet thousands of years ago (the time light reaches them) - and thousands of years ago there was no detectable signs of life here besides the promise of life by our own atmosphere signature. The reverse, we looking outside into space, is also true. We're looking things as they were thousands of years ago. Not as they're now.
@@JaceDeanLove it’s a distinction without a difference fallacy in the context it exists in. It’s like saying “there is no space-time continuum, there is a continuum of time within space.” We know that to be mathematically false
@@cosmictreason2242 Oh, FFS. Go away. You make no sense, and that's obviously your purpose here. You really don't understand what Barker's saying here and to whom and in what context he says it? There IS an obvious difference. I'm thinking you looked it up on a list of logical fallacies and thinks it works here. It doesn't. There IS no meaning OF life. We arr a cosmic accident. We are not special beings, put here by the hand of God to do his bidding. Religion is silly and unnecessary to live a healthy and satisfying life. And...it's the only one you get. So... GTF outta here and try to get something positive out of YOURS. Cosmic treason...Ray Comfort????SMFH...ROFLMFAO!!
...I'm going to have to listen to this episode a couple of times...I found myself arguing (in my mind) so many times, I did not really absorb it all. I believe that what this channel does is very important and it is worth the effort and for me a chance to practice really listening before jumping into an argument. Thank you for what you do.
I often pause these vids bcos my mind can't help pull at the inconsistencies, after vigorously hour or more thinking on it I end up coming back, depending on how much I've exhausted my brain I'll repeat the process until I'm able to just sit & listen lol.
The "Unplanned Pregnancy" line is especially amusing to me, as that's my favorite analogy for why that argument is faulty. Would you REALLY believe that someone who was born of an unplanned pregnancy lives a meaningless life, while those whose parents thought "Yes, I would like to have a child now" have meaningful ones? Is that how you treat the people around you? I'm guessing for the vast majority of people it is not. And yet that's the claim this argument makes: That being "accidental" makes one less valuable, less "meaningful" in some key way. A person conceived accidentally can still live a happy and fulfilling life, just like anyone born purposefully can, and we all know that. But somehow when we think about the human race as a whole being born "accidentally", this knowledge is forgotten. And yet the result is the same. Even if humanity was born of a mindless chemical process, WE still experience life, and joy, and meaning. We might not receive "value" from some external source, but we readily grant it to ourselves and to our fellow humans. And that's the part that matters. Not what our species's "parents" wanted for us, but the life we can make for ourselves now that we're here.
@@dlevi67 No, the reason for this is that the World Series was never meant to be a world competition of any sort. The name comes from it being propagated by the New York World newspaper.
@@doloreslehmann8628 Exactly. It's a misnomer... just like the Miss/Mr Universe titles, which are so called because the entity organising the pageants is the "Miss Universe Organisation".
As an atheist, I like watching theistic content just to make sure I'm not dismissing things out of hand. I'm glad to see a theist who does the same in reverse.
It's amazing how frequently offensive apologists are when making arguments. Using "the ultimate unplanned pregnancy" as a metaphor for us being an unspecial, cosmic accident, thus implying that an unplanned child isn't special or has much value. Apologists can be so gross sometimes.
I find it abhorrent that they refuse to concede on cases where the poor girl is a child herself; or a victim of rape or incest. Why should that woman or child have to go full term and bear the rememberance of the violence, and hate, and pain, and disrespect this victim had put upon them? And a political party, the Republicans, believes that it has a right to what goes on in her own body after that trauma. Fuck that. Some Republican jackass is talking about making a Rape Board, which would assess the victim for worthiness of abortion. 🙁 Is this Gilead? Has America gone stark raving mad? Reinstate Roe v Wade federally and get religion out of politics! Looking at the red elephant in the room.
I feel this, my son was unplanned but he’s the light of my world, and I’m so glad genetics works the way it does, it feels like he got all the good parts of me and replaced the bad parts with stuff from my partner, accidents can be more special than something planed, I had no real expectations of him, I didn’t want him to be anything, all I could think of was “damn, I guess I’m a dad now”, and I think this relates to the video a lot, trying to fill expectations will make you very closed minded and you’ll need to make sure others fall in line, but if you just accept what is, you’ll better realize the beauty in the real world, not a made up one
Coming to terms with relative morality was difficult, but oddly relieving for me. I have a tempered optimism towards humanity... Since morality is not absolute, it can be molded with knowledge and understanding, allowing for an increasingly empathetic culture. Though it would be naive of me to ignore how it can be pushed in the other direction, towards a sadistic, totalitarian morality system that makes scapegoats out of the vulnerable.
@jacobb3573 Yep. Basically the point that I attempted, tho maybe not with much clarity (knowing my track record), to get across with the latter half of my comment.
The odd thing is that we don't have to look far to see that morality is not objective but subjective. The USA still has capital punishment as a last resort, most other developed countries have moved past that. That's present day right now anyone can look it up information, but Turek is ignorant of it. Slavery was A-OK for a long time, now even the USA is rejecting it.
@@The_Real_Frisbee "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." in the last election cycle, several states finally abolished prison slave labor, but a bunch more still practice it.
Wanting to believe that morality is objective is literally the same thing as having an unsophisticated, "black and white" view of the world. Even if objective morality did exist, it's not even really correct to say that moral systems founded in religion are objective, they are absolutist moral systems, not objective. The fact of the matter is, calling something objective or absolute allows people to disengage their critical thinking skills, and simply defer to some claimed authority. It is not principled at all to claim that morality is objective or absolute, it's lazy. In reality morality is complicated, and what's right or wrong is often unclear. It is lazy and cowardly to propose that there exists some unimpeachable moral authority that you simply must obey without question. In my opinion, the primary reason why people will subscribe to an idea like objective or absolute morality is because it's just easier to do so than to accept the truth that life is complicated, because if you accept that life is full of complexities and nuances, that means you have to actually think for yourself, and thinking is hard. This is why this will always be a problem, because the appeal (for some people, at least) of letting someone or something do your thinking for you will always be attractive, and minimizing your effort both physical and mental is a practical concern that will always be relevant. The battle we fight against ignorance and laziness is a battle with ourselves and our own natural, human tendencies.
YOU LITERALLY CITED MY FAVORITE ESSAY EVER!!!! I referenced The Emotional Dog and it's Rational Tail so many times at my Christian university, I'm shocked they didn't kick me out!!!!!!
as a new atheist, so many of the arguments from people around me trying to pull me back into Christianity sickened me, because of their inherent manipulative nature. then I found this channel and I couldn't feel more at home. thanks for the entertainment.
I ditched Christianity many years ago, and I'm only now becoming aware of who Jesus actually was. Christianity manipulated the words of a man that was enlightened. They made it seem as though achieving enlightenment was only possible after death. The church cemented its authority through fear and manipulation. "What would Jesus do?" He would dismantle modern Christianity and show that the church isn't serving the message he had whatsoever. Zen Buddhism has shown to me what Christianity ought to be, a way of thinking (or rather non-thinking) that allows each of us to live our own lives. It's sad when simple, great teachings about living in the moment, not being attached to wealth, and treating others with respect are twisted into the creating of great suffering on our planet.
You’re a wonderful human being and I applaud your sincere endeavours! Thank you for being so fantastic and logical. Please don’t let the sects get you down. The work you are doing is unbelievable and helps so many people..like myself. You and your wife should keep doing the wonderful work that you’re doing 😊
Good vid 👌 Yes, existential dread is a huge factor but as you mention it is also massive egocentrism. Divine hiddeness is what I tend to dwell on. IMO if the God of the Bible were true we would all believe and their would only ever be one religion. Since that's obviously not the case...
That’s a side of the Hiddenness Argument that gets really understated. It’s not just that God chooses to not reveal himself to individuals now but that he has not done so in an organized way across cultures. If that sort of cross cultural witness to a similar revelation emerged I’d probably believe.
I found the peace I had been praying for when I finally admitted to myself that I was an atheist. I no longer suffered from any existential crises. I fully accept the pointlessness of existence and I honestly find it soothing. It means that my life is my own. I think that's a beautiful thing. In the end, I believe that much of religion is founded on fear and an unwillingness to face the unknown. Rather than accepting that everything is meaningless and that we get to make our lives our own, people use religion as a psychological crutch. I do believe religion has some value in society and as a historical area of study, but I also believe that people would be so much kinder to each other if religion died.
In general, religion creates an "us vs. them" mentality. This is admittedly just a generalization, but it's also just one of many reasons that religion is responsible for so much hate.
@@realsoupersand True But it can also unify people As with any group It’s human tribalism that’s the problem not religion itself. Also it seems that your thesis isn’t true Religion is declining in the US however political polarization has increased. Get rid of religion and you leave a vacuum for a new belief system to divide people.
That's fair. Let's take the same sentiment, but replace "religion" with "dogma." That expands it to include more than just religious beliefs. That said, some people in the United States clearly worship their political idols...
Yeah, but he could have been better prepared. Turek: "You can't say that rape, genocide and slavery are evil." Me: "As soon YHWH commands you, like multiple times in the Old Testament, you will rape, commit genocide and enslave people, saying that that's the morally good thing to do." Turek: blabla "YHWH is God" bladibla. Me: "That's the very definition of subjective - your moral judgments depend on the subject you call YHWH."
@@marknieuweboer8099 That's the next step in the argument, yeah. Show that authoritarian morality is at least as subjective as humanism. More so, really, as what causes harm can be demonstrated by evidence, which is NOT true of god claims. But there's no way Turek would allow his interlocutor to get there; I'm sure he knows perfectly well what he's doing when he presupposes authoritarianism and acts as if humanism can't be real.
That's such a short-sighted argument, too. Let's ignore the consequences of generations of people believing something big about the world that just isn't true, because it makes them more comfortable with less effort to believe in it now.
Couldn’t we also say that in an atheist worldview it’s also comfortable to know there isn’t any God and objective morality isn’t real either so there is really nothing to worry about? I mean the comforting argument goes both ways. All of our personal beliefs have an element of comfort to them.
@@UnstoppableFloridaMan I’m an atheist & I would love for there to some big, comforting place for my soul to go to when I die. To be able to, essentially, live forever. There’s very little comfort in knowing that you’re just the beneficiary of the cosmic lottery, my dude. But it’s what appears to be the case. You wouldn’t run around saying you had a billion dollars in the bank cause it makes you feel better. At the end of the day, you’re still broke.
@@UnstoppableFloridaMan The difference is, athiests don't make the argument they don't believe in a god because it comforts them. There's just no evidence they exist. In the same vein, you could say I'm comforted by the fact that eldrich abominations don't exist, but I don't doubt their existance for that reason.
I believe that the informal fallacy that underpins many of these arguments is called "appeal to the consequences." It is also telling that poorly understood subjects such as consciousness and the fundamental nature of the cosmos form so much of the substance of the arguments.
Appeals to consequences are also interesting because they will creep into the person's conception of God, even when they would otherwise say that they believe God to be truly, objectively good. For example, saying "God works in mysterious ways, it all works out toward the greater good" as a response to the Problem of Evil is an accidental acknowledgement that it's okay with God that something bad happens to you if something equally good or better happens to me. That would, if true, make God a sort of utilitarian. Clearly they don't MEAN that, but they get so wrapped up in the consequence model that God himself stops making sense as anything but a consequentialist. Even people like Aquinas got to this point. "God wouldn't allow evil except to result in an even greater good," and left implicit in there is "Right? He's got to, or otherwise why would he allow it?"
Drew is the epitome of the moral Atheist (from my perspective, anyway). He uses logic and can divorce it from emotional appeals while still being kind and understanding. I would be incredibly interested to see the videos he would have made on these subjects when he was a believer. To be able to contrast and see if they would have been approached in a similar manner. I don't know if his intellectual honesty has come by way of his sincere introspection upon first feeling doubts, or if the doubts came by way of his intellectual honesty. It's probably a moot point, but I feel like most people who deconvert go through an incredible amount of cognitive dissonance, so I have a lot of respect for anyone who can do this and stay true to themselves. Just something to consider.
This is the first time I had heard these points of view - that the premises are the things people want to believe, and not necessarily the conclusion, but that the conclusion supports the premises (God exists because morality is object, and morality is objective because God exists). It makes so much more sense why some people would be so stubborn with regard to maintaining these beliefs. The bottomless pit of dread that sits under the rope of these arguments they cling to prevents them from even considering a flaw in the argument. Great video!
The more I look into theistic belief the more hilarious their arguments appear. I laughed so hard at all the theist beliefs presented here. It was wonderful. I don't get to laugh like this often. It really has to do with self care. Thanks for the video. Lovely as always.
Great video as always. I've heard them before, but I enjoyed thinking about them in some new context. I've also seen them discussed by Tibetan Buddhists like the His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. The counter to the argument for objective morality seems self-evident to me; of course racism, slavery, and fascism are morally acceptable to some people... they persisted for ages in various forms even into today. If they were objectively wrong, no person who isn't making the choice to be immoral would espouse their "virtues". You've discussed it before; most people think these things are wrong because we evolved to desire community over division, but they've chosen short-sighted security and their own insular community over all others. The counter to the argument from fine-tuning can start with the anthropic principle; that we naturally find humans in a universe that can support human life and leaves the door open for other sorts of universes to potentially exist somewhere. When the theist starts talking about how we must then be a cosmic accident without purpose, the counter is that this is the ultimate freedom: we as humans can do and accomplish and build anything within such a universe so long as it is obeys the laws of physics. We are not bound by a cosmic purpose; we are free to decide on our own what that purpose will be. It can lead to nihilism, sure, but it can lead to anything else.
For the objective morality argument, I don’t think someone would always have to deliberately choose to be immoral; they may just not have a full understanding of the rules, just as not everyone who makes a mistake in a math problem is doing so deliberately.
I keep wondering why, if we get our morality from God, do we let God get away, frequently, with atrocities. Either committing them or allowing them to happen when he could stop it.
You also have to wonder how anything good done for humanity is always done by god but anything bad for humanity is: a) the victims deserved it; or b) it was done by those who were led astray by evil
What atrocities has God ever committed? If you give me a list I can answer in a list format. If good things come our way it's because God is merciful, if bad things it's because God is just.
@@LordUrfael Based on what? Some contradictory statements? An order to drown innocent children? A call for slavery? I'd rather not be one cult inadvisable Under a piece of fiction never ment to be taken literally in the first place with fearful followers and power for the brainwashed.
@@LordUrfael “If God does good thing, me grateful. If God do bad thing, I cope” 1. Put Adam and Eve in a garden, knowing the outcome of such actions, still instructing the apple not to be eaten, and punishing Eve and Adam upon eating it. 2. Ordered the killing of women and babies in the Bible 3. Flooded the world for its problems based on point 1, which again I say, it’s a fruition that he himself brought to existence. 4. The entirety of Job
Many arguments for God I hear people make do boil down to massive hubris: that all of existence revolves around humanity, that we are the pinnacle of life, and the only possible way humans could exist is a Perfect Being creating us, and any other path means we are nothing. Feels like extraordinary ego to me.
I make fun of their fears. That annoys them even more. They hate being mocked so much they've labeled it blasphemy and heresy in order to try to force people to stop.
I find it hilarious when religious people say "Atheism reduces humans to garbage", because religion is always telling people they are garbage and will amount to nothing without god.
Your presentation style is so good. I don’t even consider atheism a choice, it’s just default worldview until evidence to the contrary presents itself.
"One of the most fundamental statements of faith is this: your life is not about you. You’re not in control. This is not your project; rather, you are part of God’s great design. To believe this in your bones and to act accordingly is to have faith. When we operate out of this transformed vision, amazing things can happen, for we have surrendered to "a power already at work in us that can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine." Even a tiny bit of faith makes an extraordinary difference." Bishop Robert Barron
The primary reason almost all apologetics arguments (and by extension, apologists themselves) exist is to reassure doubting believers, not to bring non-believers into the fold (since they are rarely effective for that). Thus, it is not surprising to find emotionally resonant claims and premises in the most popular arguments.
I really like the thought you brought up with this and am stunned how you are able to continuously find these schemas in arguments. Nevertheless, I would like to extend on your premise: Are not all arguments for God not about God? Let me explain: I've come to the conclusion that most religions see God as the "good" way to live or the one that knows the "good" way to live. Especially, in the biblical wisdom literature, this is depicted. God defines the rules of the universe, thus creates the world. As he defined the rules of everything, he knows the "good" way to act any time. In Genesis, the human split paths with God and is since trying to find back to God by living "goodly" / according to God. (That is not true for every religion. However, most times Gods represent laws of nature, which you have to know in order to act in a "good" way.) Now to my point: You explained that humans often like to believe in a certain premise and thus argument for God. For instance, the first Argument takes the premise that morale is absolute. If you believe there is an absolute way to act in a "good" way and define God as this one "good" way, then this can easily be true. Accordingly, everything that is "good" is a premise, which describes God, thus giving an "argument for God". Furthermore, I feel that subsequently every argument for God describes something that we see as "good" - meaning an other premise which is not actually "about God". Does this make any sense? I just thought of that in reaction to this video. I'd really appreciate any comment on this train of thought.
It makes sense, but there are arguments "for God", that do not use "goodness", I think. Like, bible prophecies, while being an absolutely trashy argument, do not use "good" as a premise.
When I was a kid and working my way out of a sort of received Christian worldview, I felt profound existential dread, literally constantly. Now, I don't, but it took like the entirety of my young life and a lot of philosophy to turn myself around on it. I think the thing that really cemented it for me was realizing that I don't think I want life to be subordinated to a higher purpose; this fundamentally defeats the point of the freedom of consciousness. I can't find a way to reconcile an appreciation of free will with an absolute moral order or a God-given purpose for one's life that satisfies me, so in the end I think it's better to reject it and find other ways of thinking about ethics than imagining transcendent norms.
The fact that we’re just the random chance of the universe is actually more wondrous for me. We’re not an unplanned pregnancy, we’re a miracle. There may be many types of random chance intelligent life in the universe, but we’re the only humans. It’s absolutely amazing. The fact that the universe is so infinitely large and still we happen to be here, on this rock, being uniquely human in the entire infinity of the cosmos… that’s amazing.
I felt the same way when I read the Catholic Catechism's justification for God creating from nothing instead of preexisting material. They analogized it to an artisan, and said that if God could just use the same materials as a human craftsman, there wouldn't be anything special about God's work. To me, that's exactly backwards: It's not impressive at all if someone can snap his fingers and poof the Eiffel Tower into existence. If you give identical blocks of marble and the same tools to a poor sculptor and a master, the master will produce something much more beautiful, nuanced, and artistic than the poor sculptor. That's why we appreciate masterpieces: Using the same stuff I can buy at a hobby store, this person has employed knowledge and skill I will never have in service of something unique. I would be far more impressed if God -- working under the same material limitations as humans and through painstaking, careful, and incredibly precise processes -- could fashion things that humans could only stand in complete awe of. Because I'd know that I *could have* done that, if only I had the same wisdom and skill, and the fact that I don't deepens my appreciation for the one who does. I'll never be able to just will something into being. Really, it's the difference between someone building something amazing in Minecraft in Survival and someone doing it with Creative. It can be impressive either way, but it's more impressive if you don't have a bunch of readily-accessible cheats to help you do it.
2:15 "If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist" If moral values are dependent on God's existence, does that make them SUBJECTIVE rather than objective?
I see it too among my religion as well. Many religious people told me that conciseness comes from God and that I should be religious and I will see the one and only truth. And that if I won't I will burn in hell. I find it hilarious and too easy the way they suggest it. I am proud of having a brain and realizing this can't be true. I am willingly Jewish but not a religious one because I do have a some what level of skepticism and not just about Judaism. This is why I love this channel so I can learn different opinions and new things. Intelligence means more to me than religion. I even got a threat from a religious person that if I will eat Pork God will strike me down before I am 30. I do eat Pork from time to time, I am 36 now and God did not strike me down. The point is that such threats exist in any religion we just need to kick this bullshit out and to believe in our way like I do or not believing at all.
I have a friend that dabbles in Buddhism. It's that kind of watery kind like you, (no offense) that doesn't take all of it seriously but just thinks a good way of living aligns with some parts of the religion. It's kind of annoying to me that people like this are used by extremists to boost their statistics and garner more attention.
@@nati0598 Non taken that's alright I get you. I despise extremists who try to force themselves on others to say that their way is the right way or that there is only one way. Hell no but I could say that Judaism is the only right way for me. That doesn't hurt anyone or forcing anyone. And I am not trying to convince anyone that Judaism is the way. I also don't like it when someone tells you he is a "friend of God" and that if you will pay him small amount every month he will teach you how to be God's friend also.
Yeaaaah, it really does feel like a lot of these boil down to putting a salve on existential fears of what it means to live in a chaotic universe where we aren't the chosen-iest chosen ones to ever have beenc chosen. I grew out of those fears years ago. Where a lot of people see a deep dark abyss from which anything can emerge to destroy them... I see a universe full of strange new things to learn, and I wonder at all the stuff we've managed to achieve despite how tiny and insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things. As a believer, I felt endless despair, because I felt like I was intrinsically doomed and no matter how hard I tried, I was a "worthless sinner" who deserved punishment (despite being a total goody two shoes). ...As a non-believer, I feel wonder and awe at the universe, and I feel content and free as a tiny, insignificant part of a vast universe. Finally, it's really kind of incredible how a lot of fundamentalist claim to be *suuuper* humble before their god... While the entire thing is an exercise in making them feel like super special chosen ones.
Oh, that's curious. I felt mostly relief when I finally put Christianity and its rules that I had been struggling with for... years behind me. I no longer had to worry about the fact that my own morality didn't match up with the admittedly very conservative and fundamentalist version of Christianity I had grown up with. There was a lot of cognitive dissonance I was able to release with rejecting Christianity. I mean, I still have General Anxiety and my Behavioral Nurse Practitioner (therapy is full up in my area) thinks I've got Avoidant Personality Disorder (and she's probably right). So it's not like all my problems went away. It was just one area of my life that I was able to let go and not stress over anymore. And I've still got... lots of other areas where I just... can't.
You wouldn't believe what she found... Christians hate her!!! Nice seeing someone who knows that their value isn't based on one 'person's opinion of them :)
I always think its interesting if the universe was fine tuned for human life then logically the vast majority of the universe would be accessible and inhabitable, it must have been an interesting moment when it was discovered that when you leave the earth you suddely run out of atmosphere.... Yet it isnt even if we localise this to just the planet then the it would probably benefit humans to have been "created " aquatic.
I like the way you think, I like the way you express the ideas. You are a life saver too many people. You are entitled to a degree of pride. Not too much though, remember what comes after pride, lol. Seriously you are something of a humanitarian treasure. Cheers.
This was the first video of yours I've seen, and I just want to thank you for your calmness, respectfulness, fairness, and rationale. =) We need more of all those qualities in these kinds of discussions! Although I've been having similar views on the arguments you present here, I've never been able to put it quite so eloquently. And with all the "intelligent design" arguments (aka "the ultimate unplanned pregnancy", goodness what an analogy!), I find it more amazing to marvel about beating the odds of us being here! I mean, some philosophies would argue that there was always a 100% chance of everything that has happened to have happen, because it did, but the odds of this little spec of dust to have heard your voice and even (probably) understood what you were saying is kind of awesome in my mind. And at the same time completely irrelevant, depending on ones perspective, and I find that quite cool to tbh. ^^ Anyway, sorry 'bout the rambling. Thanks again! =)
Saying morality isnt objective is probably the best way to go about things to leave room for society to change and for nuanced interpretations of complicated situations. If morality is objective then killing is always wrong even if its a means to save your own life or a means to prevent them from suffering and passively letting someone die is always wrong even though you couldn't realistically help them without harming yourself. And objectivity means that we cant disagree on the above and discuss it.
I don’t know why it has to be such a bad thing if everything that happens is chance. To me that is beautiful. I choose to see it that way. I hold no illusions of a just world phenomena, realize that making music makes me happy, enjoy exercise, and want to see beautiful natural wonders. That is my meaning. Oh, can’t forget how good food tastes. The way the chemicals in my brain light up when I eat pho, or chana saag… nothing like it. That’s my meaning. I make it for myself. I am gonna go out kicking and screaming. I love being alive.
5:35 I have realized that people who are proud of their labels like "theist" really enjoy labeling others too, or at least need labels to interpret things like "atheist", "sinner", "cosmic junk". What does it matter if we are cosmic junk or not? Why do we have to have a higher purpose instead of just living our life to the fullest and then leave this planet when the time comes? It seems that even this is baked in the belief of God (the fact that we are all loved by God therefore each and every one of us is important in a cosmological sense) Regardless if you believe in God or not you should realize that you only got this one life, and the existential thread can easily hit you if you waste your life, regardless of belief or not.
Such theists don't care about this one Earthly life (especially not whenbit concerns other people) because they expect afterlife to be so much better. So yes, it does matter.
if humans are special then here are a few species they should add to the 'special' list: - Chimps & other apes - Dogs/Cats - Birds (ravens & parrots especially) - Elephants - Cetaceans and those are only the ones I could think of. all of them have high intelligence and can interact with object in ways similar to humans (for example - tool use. search in Wikipedia for "Tool use by animals" and see all the species listed there)
Because of other animal special-ness, we can learn things about ourselves such as the fact that "alpha-males" don't really exist. Any leader who is abusive/unfair is taken down by the group. We'd think (and did) all kinds of garbage without having other animals to study. There's strong empathy and morals in animals even though they lack the higher intelligence of the frontal lobes. They laugh, they cry, they mourn, they love, they plan, they take care of each others offspring or other kinds of animals sometimes. Religious people need to look at our current understanding of our fellow earthlings. Great Post!
I have a story that explains moral relativism. A young boy was hanged for stealing an apple to feed his starving sister. When I first started reading the story I was horrified. What kind of people would do such a thing? But as I continue to read I found out that everyone in the village was starving. Apples were one of the few foods they had. The apples were being rationed out so that they would last. So, what the boy did was wrong. Far from being a harmless act that harmed no one, the stealing of the apple put the whole village at risk of starvation. Stealing food during a famine has to be discouraged at all cost. I learned from this story that whether or not an action is moral or immoral depends on the circumstances. This is what moral relativism means to me.
This video does a great job of exposing the guilt / fear-based / emotionally charged rhetoric that sits underneath christian apologetic presentations. I think it also explains why the likes of Frank Turek using Nazi examples (like the one in this video) simply cannot intimidate the likes of Alex O'Connor (Cosmic Skeptic) or Christopher Hitchens in debates. Thinkers that can see those intimidation tactics and can respond by referencing good principles always win debates with theists - in my opinion. A great example of this was the debate between Christopher Hitchens & Stephen Fry v.s. Ann Widdecombe & Archbishop Onaiyekan - "Is the catholic church a force for good?" A large live audience is polled at the start and close to 40% believe that the catholic church is a force for good with about 10% undecided. At the end of the debate - about 10% believe the catholic church is a force for good, with about 1% undecided. Great thinkers and speakers like Hitchens & Fry can empower audiences to not be guilted or afraid of not believing in gods and afterlives anymore. God didnt create us in his image, we created gods in ours.
My least favorite thing that theists say is “if there’s no god then why don’t you go around raping and murdering?” Or something like that because it suggests that the only reason they are nice is because they want to get something which I feel is selfish and makes that person a bad person if that makes sense
It's one of my favourites, because it's so easy to make these theists look stupid. "By all means keep on believing in your imaginary sky daddy. You just admitted that without you fearing him will go on a nice raping and killing spree immediately. Civilized unbelievers like me don't." So yes, you do make sense.
I find it funny that theists claim that humans are “accidents” according to atheists. No, because an accident would also imply that there was some sort of plan with life and that we weren’t the intended result. We’re saying that there was no plan to begin with.
The meaning is that humans are "accidental" to the mechanics of the universe, that the laws of physics exist without reference or subordination to the creation and existence of humans. That the longest side of a triangle is shorter than the other two sides added together is not "accidental," it is a direct result of the mechanics of a cartesian field. It literally could not be any other way on a flat plane. According to the atheistic argument, humans are accidental in that there is no particular reason that humans MUST exist according to the governing laws of physics. On the contrary, the Christian argument is that part of the reason God made the universe in the first place is so that people would get to know and love Him and each other. Therefore, the existence of rational persons is foundational to the universe's existence in some capacity; thus, people are not accidental.
@@whitebeans7292 You literally just proved my point. You’re assuming that there is intent behind the way the universe is. That’s something you need to actually prove.
@@LucareonVee I gave 2 different arguments, I didn't assume there was intent in the universe for the atheistic argument. I wasn't trying to prove the existence of God, I was trying to say that "accidental" has the same meaning as "by chance" in the sentence "Human beings are accidental in the universe." Things are accidental if they did not have to be but are. Logically, 1+1 must be 2, so 1+1=2 is not accidental. Just because something is NOT accidental, does not mean that it was on purpose (chosen by free will). It could be the result of other true things. Things fall because of gravity, so falling things are not accidental--they have a cause.
@@whitebeans7292 And our cause was that various species bred in nature where the traits we had were better suited to our ability to survive and continue to breed. If you want to see that as “by chance,” then go ahead. It still doesn’t say intent to me. Intent is what I need to see. All I see otherwise is observable reality.
If only ANY Christian studied only a little bit of neurochemistry. It could answer so many of their questions about thought, memories and even consciousness. Even moderate Christians always absolutely REFUSE to listen to me even remotely talk about neurochemistry. And then their argument is "how do you know?" Because we've been able to see chemical reactions firing off in the brain at every moment, and we've even been able to match certain patterns to emotions and actions? Their response then is "oh, but who MADE it like that? That's so perfect." To which I say, well it isn't perfect for one, things go wrong, people have mental disorders and stuff like that, it is anything but perfect, and also, my talking about science doesn't inherently attempt to disprove a deity, as it would be an absurd goal for a study to do so, but just as you cannot prove a god exists, you also can't completely disprove one. But what does "proving gods" mean? Do people think they understand completely that which they also state is far too great for us to even witness? Even if there was a god, we still wouldn't be able to prove one existed, because the reason I already stated, plus that it would not match up to any god humans have ever thought of, so they wouldn't even be called gods at that point. It is a pointless argument, and as an atheist, outside of pointing out facts, or trying to help people learn, I hardly ever try and engage in a conversation about religion unless it is just thrown into the conversation and won't leave
by contrast, Buddhist monks tend to love neuroscience. "hell yea, hook my brain up to whatever instruments you got. i want to see what it's doing when i meditate."
As a Christian with a mother who is a nurse and a father who is a Radiologist, I am actually curious. What specifically about human neurochemistry disproves the existence of God? Historically, Christians such as Thomas Aquinas would have no problem with saying your physical body affects or has something to do with your mind. If man is a union of body and soul, it makes perfect sense that things that affect your body would have an indirect affect on your soul.
One thing that I realized after I left Christianity is that I didn't want some divine purpose; I just wanted to exist. Sure, I had my own fears about what happens after I die, I'm sure everyone has. But I'm not coming back because of fear. And Christianity didn't stop me from having an existential crisis anyway.
No, I was 9 or 10 when I understood that there is no reason to fear being dead. I was not around before my parents had sex either. The process of dying is what I fear.
As someone with General Anxiety, I can definitely tell you that emotions are *_not_* rational! Like, at all. Why am I anxious? I've got no fucking clue. I just know that I am and I can't just will or logic it away. It's there and I have to deal with it. Some days I can handle it better than others. And some days, I just have to go back to bed.
I have long noticed how religion stems mostly from our inability to make sense of our existence and, specially, of our death. If you have been taught since you're a kid that when you die, you don't really die, it means you have never actually thought about death, never had to trully deal with its implications. No matter how well put are some arguments against the existence of a god or afterlife, it will force people to think about their inevitable death, including the death of consciousness, so they will always run into this cognitive dissonance. I highly recommend the two-part video form TheraminTrees about death. Amazing content as always. Thank you!
Wait how was that first religious guy trying to prop up the idea of objective morality by saying rape and slavery are of course objectively bad, while his bible advocates for both..??
Indeed. The apologist answer makes it even worse: because YHWH is the creator god, hence by definition good and we humans have no choice to obey. Morals hence depend on the subject called YHWH, are subjective and justified by the Divine Führer Principle. This Dutchman by now begins to understand the rise of christofascism in the USA.
Always so grateful for your perspective, thank you for your work! While I have long been an atheist, each of your videos gives me something new and fun to consider. Thank you again!
A perspective: it boils down to the cognitive and emotional maturity required to reconcile with temporality, individual mortality. Many people haven't arrived; hence the God-as-Father construct. I am convinced that comfort narrative drives most God assertion.
I like how confident people are saying that human consciousness can't be explained naturalistcally.. I wonder why people are so sure about that. I don't see any reason why we couldnt discover how this works in the future. Not long ago, people would say a machine could never be creative. Look at what A.I. already does. And compared to a biological brain, these artificial neural networks are absolutely simple, yet they can produce artistic images in a matter of seconds.. Who knows maybe the computer in a 100 years from now on is so complicated that it inherintely develops a consciousness.
No objective morality means "Nothing wrong with Nazis, rape, slavery". If you were a Nazi, or a rapist, or a slave owner, you'd probably agree with that statement. The bible does not condemn slavery, it sets stronger punishment on the woman being raped than the rapist, and god orders his followers to perform ethnic cleansing on foreign nations. Morality, as practiced by religions, is totally subjective.
Love this channel. As a Christian, there's nothing better than seeing the other side and questioning if you should believe what you believe I just wish other christians didn't turn into cult followers and attack others for alternate beliefs. Its ironic and it goes against what they believe
GMS, Drew, lol, when you were talking about the cosmological argument, you were saying how it's our egos, we could say the universe was created for gas pockets, etc. I immediately though of George Carlin saying our beautiful blue planet wanted plastic! It created us to make plastic, and now will shake us off like the parasites we are! LOL. 👍💙💖🥰✌
If people genuinely need God to have morals, then I beg them to keep believing. If someone needs a god to tell them it’s wrong to kill or to 🍇 someone, then by all means, read the holy book and everything. I just don’t need a god to tell me not to do that, so I’m an atheist.
When I was younger, I was raised in a Christian house by my mom and stuff. It wasn't until, like, a few years ago when I kinda went, "oh, I'm agnostic" after years of just... questioning things kind of. I don't think about religion 😭 The ONE thing that stands out to me the most that makes me wonder if there is a God or not, is from when I was in around 4th~5th grade [I'm 18 as of right now.] There was drawing at the school with a $50 Walmart gift card [3 students out of I believe 300 something would've won it], and little ol' 8~10 y/o me legit prayed every night to get the card 😭 I did actually end up getting my name drawn- it took a few months for the drawing to actually, welll, get drawn, so it was months of little me begging a Sky Man for $50 😭 I did use it on food though so that was helpful. EITHER WAY, I'm still agnostic and kind of just like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ on everything. Cause everything is just, like, one big chunk of "aaaaaaa???" to me 😭 It's weird when people ask me to pray for them now cause I'm just the person standing emoji when that happens 😭
Depends on the definition mostly. If being aware of your surroundings and acting accordingly mean consciousness, then yeah, all living beings and even lifeless chemicals can be conscious. So you have to narrow it down to being capable of intellectual awareness of what happens in your own body and change it any way you would want as much as the body allows. Although this definition isn't foolproof either, it has considerably narrowed down the definition to include the actions mostly observed only in humans.
@@amazingcalvin is it not possible that animals do indeed have consciousness in the same way we understand humans to have it but because they lack they lack the ability to communicate with us, or at least to articulate thought verbally to the same level of complexity as us, that we do not recognise it as being the same?
@@LittleMAC78 Yes. That's why I already said that this narrowed down definition of consciousness is also flawed, though it does sufficiently exclude most animals to a large extent other than humans. Although we don't really have studies dedicating towards all life forms, we do have one advantage over other animals. We enhance our survival rate with our own innovations. This capability is unique to humans alone from what we have observed so far. This ability to increase our own survival via science does not need any biological evolution on our part. This same capability to think has also produced philosophy and ultimately religion.
The response to the second argument is that we are here on earth, living breathing and doing general human shenanigans. It really doesn’t matter how we got here the fact is that we’re here and we can’t really change that. We also know we have emotions and there are things that make us feel good and things that make us feel bad. So while our end may just be same nothing there was before we were born while we’re here we might as well do the things that make us feel good and not the things that make us or others feel bad.
That's a good argument for objective morality. Where objective truth can apply to our classical sense of reality and some kind of platonic reality of the same thing, objective morality can only exist in the metaphysical sense, subjectively.
IMO main argument about morals is only about arrogance of Christians, trying to usurp the creation of morals to themselves. While in reality, morals are an outcome of the humanity forming societal constructs (as a sort of predecessor of laws) and existed long before Christianity came into being. They just did the same as with any and all ancient holidays - they took them and overwrote them, so it looks as if they´ve created the holidays. Also, morals of individual social and ethnical groups don´t overlap, but differ. And i absolutely hate, when somebody tries to imply, there are only 2 options and you can only pick ONE, when there are, in fact, many options to pick from. But to realize this, you need to be able to think outside of the box. The teaching of human supremacy, coming out of religion, is the greatest BS, which keeps affecting humanity to this day. We are just 1 of many intelligent living species on this planet. All of them have their personalities, feelings, needs and wants. Just the constant need for survival keeps suppressing their wants. And this is just about the intelligent life as WE know it. There may be many more species, even the planets and starts can very well be alive and we will never be able to comprehend or understand them. There is great humility in understanding of our place in the vast universe. And i think that´s how the humility should be used - not to submit to the will of others, who demand us to behave in certain ways, because "god ordered that" (and in fact, THEY are ordering it and are only hiding behind the "god" ). While external website to evaluate the trustworthiness of news can be useful, it can also be misused in the future to spread propaganda. I´d rather learn, how to fight confirmation bias and make my own opinions, than just build trust to some website, because it´s convenient. Conveniency makes people lazy. I´m not trying to devalue someone´s work, i´m just pointing out, that as long, as it´s a service made by humans, it can be misused without the user base realizing it.
i do have to wonder for objective morality why the first premise is even true. say there are objective morals. There is also an objective speed of light and objective laws of physics and chemistry that as far as we know are constant throughout the universe. So, what if objective morals are just some aspect of nature, that there are some philosophic laws out there? there's no reason there has to be a god dictating what those values are. One might claim that they're arbitrary if its just a part of nature but so too would it be from god, completely arbitrary
while i am not a Moral Realist, you are correct. if we somehow were able to determine that actual Objective Moral Laws exist external to thinking agents, that would be nowhere near sufficient to demonstrate that a god made them, rather than their existing independently like physical laws.
Christianity itself is based in fear. I would give none of them any credibility on that alone. I would have zero respect for any God doing that first sin punishment thing. That is simply ridiculous.
Uff, I do not feel like you can say that this alone represents Christianity. Arguing about the "punishment thing", I think it is hard to compare the consequences of the original sin to a punishment. Garden Eden may be seen as an Ideal World. Humans by taking action on their own are not acting "ideally" or "perfectly" anymore and in consequence cannot exist in an Ideal World. Talking about fear, I do not think that being exiled out of Garden Even does inflict any fear to you. Looking from your current position Garden Even represents hope and encouragement to act "good" since that is described to be mans way to reenter Garden Even. I believe it is understandable for every other world view that if everyone acts "good", then this world can be described as "ideal". The idea of punishment for "bad" behaviour exists in every world view since it most times simply describes failing to act "goodly" / to make the world more "ideal". (Concepts like Hell maybe based on fear, but as you may know Christianity is not based around "Heaven" or "Hell" anymore - neither does its scripture. Core concept of the Bible is that humanity trying to get back into Garden Eden.)
@@aseraphyss Genesis is framed on the template of the monomyth and is a derivative of the Hero's Journey also found in Hinduism, Greek Myth, Buddhism, Taoism, etc. And hey, wouldn't you know it, Roman myth too. It's not a stretch to see seeking the holy grail or the kingdom of heaven within are on that template too. First historical references from Gilgamesh and the Babylonian creation story, The Enuma Elish. Christianity is far down stream and simply has new analogs to carry it. I seek the template. Not non-demonstrable supernatural.
@@danielpaulson8838 Well, there are many templates in every religion and culture. I interpreted: "Christianity itself is based in fear.", as reducing Christianity to one template alone and I do not think this fits a divers and multilayered debate as the one of Christianity itself.
@@danielpaulson8838 I do not understand what you mean by: "Not non-demonstrable supernatural." Are stories themself not prone to be non-demonstrable supernatural? What is the correlation between the template of the monomyth and fear alone? A Hero's journey includes motivation, reflection and hard work as well.
@@aseraphyss Christianity has both. It's on the template and then it tells you to believe or you will suffer an eternity.... I know the religion very well.
One thing I've never heard talked about is 'What did God do before he invented the universe?' He must have been bored out of his mind. I wonder how long he sat there with nothing to do. What gave him the idea?
I never understand why Religious people have to think we are special. Why do we have to be special? Why can't we just be? I remember arguing with a coworking about that, he kept asking if we meant nothing if there was no god, and I kept asking why we had to mean anything to live our lives. We are who we are, and we do not need any meaning for it to be true. I was an unplanned child, but that does not mean I don't exist, nor does my existence mean less because of it. Humans (and all life really) are an extraordinary game of probability, and we should fell special for that reason alone, not because some sky god made us.
Try Ground News for free:
ground.news/skeptic
(yes i do actually use it)
ok
*Two disclaimers*
I think you're off on the wrong foot. All arguments are "this way" on both sides of the debate. All arguments about gods and afterlifes rely on expressing the ideas in a way that feels intuitive. That doesn't make it an emotional argument. It's simply an acknowledgement that none of us can possibly know and we do have to go with what feels comfortable. There is, and cannot be, a purely logical argument that means anything to anyone.
Bro if you aren't smart enough to understand the debate between objective morality vs subjective than that's on you. Like you assume as much if not more about the nature of that argument than you claim those who make it do.
Point is simple, if the nature of all human consciousness can be limited to the subjective nature of our experience, than you have the proof for nothing objective. Because all we have is the subjective interactions with the world. A concept atheists seems inherently unable to comprehend. Like science is not based upon the subjective nature of the universe science is based PURELY upon the human consciousness and its observations of the universe. Saying morality is subjective by nature just means you have no understanding about the nature of humanity and are fine with the destruction of one species because that is literally what your philosophy will lead to.
Atheists- "Nothing happens after you die not matter how evil you are nor no matter what you do. So you can literally do whatever you want and at the end of the day the same thing will happen to you as did to the nicest person on the planet even with you worshipped Hitler and murdered people!"
The problem you have is that you don't seem to have basic understanding of what shit YOUR own personal philosophy is. Your mad that is an accurate description of what you think and it makes atheists look like short sighted children who have no sense of anything besides they concept ls of superiority... CUZ THATS WHAT YOU GUYS ARE!
@@hippykiller2775
U mad bro?
how do you get to the free version?
I notice that most arguments for God only argue for the existence of a creator deity.
So even if we accept an argument for God, they still have to make an argument for why it is the one described in the bible.
It's because the only god that could possibly exist is the one the person making the argument believes in, of course! (sarcasm)
I have actually heard some Islamic apologetics (from the more moderate side) that argue that nothing in the Quran is falsified by science, whereas the Bible and several other holy texts are proven false through concepts like evolution. (I've never read the Quran, but from that argument, I'd guess it lacks a creation narrative that's explicit enough that it's clearly not evolution.)
Also, I will note, the person in question was making very clear distinctions between the teachings of the Quran itself as opposed to cultural traditions, interpretive books, etc that are not the teachings of the Prophet, which is a notable qualifier. He suggested that the oppression of women in many Islamic countries, for instance, stems from pre-Islamic Arabic traditions. (But, again, I've not read the book, I don't know if that's true or just his reading of it.)
Exactly.
Even weirder when I know more about the Christian god, not that powerful because he doesn't do the most effiecient things like creating a flood instead of just Thanos snapping people, has human emotions despite being constantly hailed as "God works mysteriously", etc. and etc.
@@franciscodetonne4797 It's even more interesting when you look into the history of the Biblical god. He was originally a war/storm god that got incorporated into the Canaanite pantheon as a son of the chief Canaanite god El before inheriting the top spot in the pantheon and El's wife Athirat (Asherah) before religious reforms. He even took on the characteristics and attributes of the Canaanite gods El and Baal.
I think the plan is to try and slide you into believing in their god one rather dubious step at a time without you noticing.
I remember seeing Hitchens mention this, he said something to the effect of "you can perhaps get to deism, but you'll still have all the work ahead of you to get to Christianity" (highly paraphrased as I can't recall the quote)
The fact that that guy said "We are the ultimate unplanned pregnancy" is ironic because he still can't give up the notion that we're special. We aren't the ultimate unplanned pregnancy, we're just one of many, many unplanned pregnancies.
Really well said.
@@themightybrew3979 Exactly (it's not ironic), because deep down, there is a part of him that still wants to believe, and really, there is nothing wrong with that. I hope he finds his way back to his faith.
Implying that we're like an unplanned pregnancy = our lives have no meaning is also kind of gross. Pretty sure I know a few people who came from unplanned pregnancies who'd take issue with that.
Sure, we're accidental. But now we exist and we get to exist and have feelings and complex thoughts and make meaning for our lives. We're not the ultimate unplanned pregnancy but I think it's a kinda rad one.
@@lorelle7271 As my sister says, she's not accidental. she's a miracle.
That's how my mom makes me feel
It's interesting to me that, upon realizing and accepting that I was not a Christian anymore, I didn't despair. There was no existential crisis for me, and I'd been an avowed Christian for over 40 years.
40 years here and no upheaval either.
You are probably in the minority. I was raised Catholic so dropping out wasn't a big deal because most Catholics are in a different category than the fundamentalist christians. I think for most of them it's a very long and complicated process.
Same. I transitioned from like a casually Christian family deal to a more animistic view before finally settling into agnosticism. Never in that process did I have a moment where the realization truly upset me in any way
I agree. That for many it is apparently a big deal, especially within fundamentalist strains of Christianity because the indoctrination is so thick and the community often fairly tight. I think individual personality plays a role as well as the kind of exposure says individual will have to alternative viewpoints and evidence. To that end, reflecting on my own experiences it's probably not surprising that I walked away and that it wasn't jarring to my psyche.
For myself, I was raised in a fundamentalist home, but my parents were also divorced, so I was also exposed to my father's angry, reactionary atheism. And on my own as a young adult I talked with people of various beliefs and opinions. I tend to be very logical, realistic, and sometimes pragmatic. I lived with cognitive dissonance for years. It just got to a point
Hi..... 60-year-old guy here and academic .... I am a big fan and have followed your videos for quite some time ....I am a former christian but a theist in my own way and appreciate all of your arguments and thoughtful comments. The injury that christians cause in the inquisitive is painful to contemplate, but not unexpected. You are extremely respectful and kind to your antagonists and make so many good points - all who believe in free thought and kindness should be in your camp - keep up the good work!
It's always interesting to me how theists will argue for the utility of religion over the actual existence of a deity.
That's because, honestly, how could you argue for the existence of a deity? I say that as a Christian, by the way. The existence or non-existence of a deity is something way beyond the realm of argument.
@@doloreslehmann8628 If the existence of deities is so far outside the realm of argumentation, what is it that compels so many theists to place so much confidence and passion in its claims? Would it not, instead, be rational to withhold confidence until existence has been demonstrated?
I think it's exactly what Drew has described: Many theists are attracted to the emotional reassurances of theism's premises rather than the rational soundness of its conclusions.
@@sharpienate On the one hand, yes, the claims you make about the details of what you believe should be rational and conclusive in themselves.
But on the other hand, the existence or non-existence of a deity, while it's clearly possible to argue about it, is nothing that can be resolved by arguing. You may have good arguments on both sides, but they don't demonstrate or prove anything. You'll never reach the point where there's only one conclusion left to be drawn. But that is valid for many things in life. You always have to make decisions without knowing all the facts. Always. So you just go for what has the most appeal and makes the most sense for you and hope for the best.
In the end, the decisive question is not whether what you believe is true. It's whether you are true to what you believe. The truth of it will unfold along the way by the kind of person you become.
Sometimes an argument about a deity's plausibility to exist can lead to all sorts of unexpected examinations about how that plausibility is established in some, while revealed to be incoherent in concept (only certain deific concepts are incoherent when they are fully presented).
Why the belief exists despite there being no direct compelling reason to believe is another subject that can be directly resolved by debate and examination of things like evidence & epistemology.
I appreciate your criticism of debating deific existence.
Keeping it confined to only argumentation about the deity's extant nature or lack thereof has ultimately struck me as narrow & incurious. Detached from how belief functions, how various religious communities inspire belief, and how the belief is maintained or discarded outside (or even within) different religious communities. All these parts of social interaction are removed for the sake of simplicity. The process of convincing one another to understand and agree robustly or disagree robustly has far more utility. I find it hollow to skip past talking about how criteria for belief is established within an individual (but apparently not in other individuals) while engaging in discussions that are narrow enough to resolve nothing about belief beyond the fact that certain claims are accepted.
@@doloreslehmann8628 There are no "two sides" to a discussion over supernatural existence claims. Claimants stand alone in their assertions and their audience stands ready to measure any evidence against a rational framework of reality.
A free-thinking rational audience holds no belief in an existence claim UNTIL it can be adequately demonstrated with valid evidence. The absence of confidence in an unsupported claim is not the "other side" and it's not "anti-belief". Withholding belief in spurious and unsupported claims is the safe and rational behavior of a mature mind. Healthy and mature minds do it all the time with claims that do not already have a built-in emotional appeal.
However...if you presuppose the validity of an existence claim because its validity will give you some emotional or existential comfort, then yes, I suppose it might appear there are "two sides" with good arguments. But, unfortunately, that betrays a misunderstanding of the rhetorical circumstances.
The idea that humans are uniquely intelligent is disproven every time I play with a dog or meet anyone from Kentucky.
I'd say that we are uniquely intelligent. So much so that it makes it hard for us to comprehend or even appreciate other types of unique intelligence.
@@misteraskman3668 Are you saying that dogs/monkeys have is easy comprehending other types of unique intelligence?
@@nati0598 Not at all. I see it a bit like we are trapped by our own intelligence. I do believe that humans are antropocentric in our comprehension of the world. Like,, we are so specialized that we can't easily comprehend what other intelligences might be like.
@@misteraskman3668 I get your point but you just used 'unique' and that's kinda the wrong word for it I think. Because that implies that other 'unique' intelligences aren't specialized and can comprehend others unlike us who are.
@@nati0598 I don't mean this in a confrontative way, it is an honest question: what other word should I use then?
A guy asked me what God could do to prove he existed. I told him this:
"Every Christmas, everyone is teleported to the desert, where they are arrayed around a 10-mile-tall God. God makes a speech -- orders, complaints, advice, etc. People hear the speech in their preferred languages. Everyone is teleported back home, where they find that their clothes are now pure white, and all their medical issues are healed.
Everyone also now has transcripts of God's presentation, in their preferred languages, inscribed into sheets of pure platinum. The sheets are EXACTLY 8.500000 inches by 11.0000000 inches, to the limits of precision allowed by the size of platinum atoms. Satellite photos of the desert clearly show the 8 billion sets of footprints, and the one enormous set in the middle, and visitors to the spot hear (and can record) the sound of an angelic choir year-round."
Of course, he told me God doesn't do public appearances anymore. I asked him why he had asked such a stupid question, if he knew God wouldn't care about my answer anyway. He gave up at that point.
You might try this one: let YHWH appear in the dreams of all creationists simultaneously and tell them to accept evolution theory. The dream must be convincing enough that at least 95 % obeys.
If you understood the manuscript tradition of the Bible, you’d understand this demand is both foolish and redundant
@@marknieuweboer8099 YMCA my beloved lord 🙏
@@cosmictreason2242 so what exactly that you ask for god will do? Did God ever helped you in your life or are you just coping?
@Steven Scott at that point i'd tell them: "Okay, you've asked me and i've answered, now go ask your god WHY he doesn't `do public appearances anymore`... and please only come back after he answers you. And you might want to keep in mind that ANY answer from your god SHOULD somehow be good enough to convince me, shouldn't it?"
As an ex-Muslim myself, I find the rebuttal of these argument extremely useful and helpful. Thank you so much ❤
@Sahanda yumurta In the west the word 'Muslim' has a muddled meaning because it can either refer to the people who are members of Islamic religions and it can also refer to people who live, or have heritage in the middle-east. So many times the conversation about Islam devolves into racism against every Middle-eastern person. That's why sometimes people jump the gun when someone talks against Islam and assumes that you are talking against the entire community.
I'm interested on how you could be an ex-muslim, and why would it appear to be not suitable for you
@@Christ-k4k Because Islam makes very large claims that cannot be proven to be true.
@@valdavis7461 to which your referring to? I'm interested about how you can come to that conclusion. Many thing cannot be proven but there must be some sort explaining behind it, even then that explanation either lost in time or exist in the future which i cannot say. But my take on it is, if i believe 80% of it have explanation the rest must have well, maybe not in my lifetime unfortunately.
@Sahanda yumurta Thankyou. And the Christian religion also was that early on too, and can be even now.
I was in a debate recently w/ a younger Christian and it blew his mind when i told him "we really aren't better than anything else. We just exist differently"
Edit - Big fan of your channel. I inspire to have that calmness you exude here. Thank you for existing. Have a good day 😁
I was watching a call in show, where the host told the caller that if all humans suddenly disappeared, there would be zero impact on the universe. The caller couldn't formulate a response. The call ended shortly after.
Look what We've done to the Earth with our superiority complex...take take take mentality, it's all here for us
@@tirebiter4009 I mean, there would be, even if a minuscle and almost laughable one, but there would be atleast a minimal impact. And we can say so because we distinguish between an "universe with humans" and an "universe without humans". If human "existence" or "non-existence" had absolutely no impact in the universe, then we would not distinguish between the two possibilities, as "humans" would be a meaningless variable. But then we could not really say about an "universe without humans", just as we could not say about an "universe with humans", which would make the argument presented by the host pointless. Thus, if we are to distinguish between an "universe with humans" and an "universe without humans", we would need to consider "humans" as a variable, even if a minimally relevant one, but still linguistically relevant.
Reality can only be said to be in relation to subjects, as reality is phenomenologically reproduced, or we could say, experienciated, by these subjects. And if we are to consider what we call "humans" as subjects, then reality can only be said to be in relation to "humans" as subjects. Thus, "humans" as subjects are important. We need to consider, however, what is "human" and "non-human".
@@andg2984 In the show I had watched, the caller believed that humans were the most favored creation by god and had a special place in the universe. The host quickly dispelled that thought.
Do an Internet search for "The Six Million-Mile View of Earth and Moon". It is a photo taken by the Juno probe when it was only 6 million miles away. The earth and moon appear as two small dots in it. That's where all 8 billion humans live.
If the sun was the size of a basketball, the earth would be about the size of a bb and be over 80 feet away. The next nearest star would also be basketball sized, and be 5 miles away.
The solar system has a diameter of 12 trillion miles (including the oort cloud). The earth is about 0.000003% of the total mass of the solar system. Our solar system compared to the galaxy is smaller than a grain of sand on a large beach. Our galaxy compared to the universe is smaller than a grain of sand on the Sahara Desert.
If humans disappeared today, the universe would take no notice.
@Carinaud Ricardo I think I mention in one or two posts that it has to do with radical fundamentalist christians who loudly proclaim that the whole universe was created for the benefit of good, christian humans. Which, by the way, accounts for less than a third of all the people on the planet. It could be less than 1% according to many christian sects.
Their delusions by themselves should not be more than a source of amusement to people that realize that our race, our planet, our solar system, our galaxy are completely inconsequential to the universe as a whole.
You rightly point out that humans exist to serve each other. I couldn't agree more. But that's a different topic from whether the universe is aware of us, or cares if we exist or not.
The unamusing part of all this is these radical christians feel it is their duty to decide for everybody else that their beliefs need to be enacted into law as christian nationalism. And they are tenacious in getting into powerful positions to make it happen.
That's when it starts getting scary.
Especially with the fine-tuning argument. This is absolutely based on an unspoken premise that somehow `we are special` and had reality been any different we wouldn't exist, therefore God. There never seems to be any acknowledgement that had those constants been different, perhaps something even more amazing than us would have come to be. Though, not to be too condescending about it, but that mentality makes sense to someone who believes that we are not only created in the image of an all powerful creator, but that we are `inheritors to its kingdom,` however you interpret that. To that person, sure, we're the most important thing in the universe or any universe you could conceive of, so the fine-tuning argument makes perfect sense.
In the beginning, man made god in his image...
There are many rational refutations of the fine-tuning argument:
- We can only see this universe. You can't calculate probabilities if the number of observations is 1.
- If an event is not absolutely impossible then the probability of it happening, given enough time, is 1.
- We have no validated theory of the earliest moments of the universe, so we don't know how these constants came about, or how variable they are.
- The probability that the constants enable life, given the fact that there is someone pondering them, equals 1.
- "Life" has been poorly defined. Can you imagine a swirling cloud of gas having consciousness through some atomic process? If so, we can't really calculate the probability of something so vague.
We can see how a created world with the human focus would actually look like with addictive computer game worlds, where you resurrect regularly at your last safepoint, can't target other players or townpeople with any weapons and alterate your outfit and looks. Fly to your job with your pet dragon and go to adventures. This is where huge companies spend millions of cash to psychology teams to make it more addictive for humans to emerge into the second better life with unicorn friends and where you can fly around and when you kill a deer it respawns just again. This is an actual created world for human centristic states. Our world is nothing alike. Humans are indeed just 1 animal species and when tomorrow an astroid would hit the earth and kill all bigger lifeforms - like once the dinos - we would be gone.
@@dalstein3708 I think you are missing an 'im' in your second refutation ("absolutely impossible").
If by "something even more amazing" you mean a universe with nothing but black holes, or with no matter at all, then sure.
Showing clips of apologists being so blatantly dishonest was a good touch. Nice video, as always.
Yeahh rip
They can't help it. There is no honest way to do their job.
@@jursamaj does it not count as honest if they believe their own lies?
@@GoldenMechaTiger That's the point. They don't.
as an atheist, I value my life more than I ever have, and I relish in the ability to make my own meaning of my life. the existence of life, as far as we know, is rare across the cosmos. that fact makes me thankful that I get to experience consciousness for the short time I have to exist. to me, that's really beautiful. I got a one in a million chance to be me in this present moment.
Commenting on "as far as we know, is rare across the cosmos"
...the far we know is not far at all, considering the vastness of space.
It's like looking for birds in the next room and not seeing one, stating birds are rare on this planet.
Light speed is way too slow.
Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, one in 200 billion others, has a 52000 light years radius and it has a few hundred billion stars to observe.
Meaning, most civilizations out there looking at our planet, will be seeing our own planet thousands of years ago (the time light reaches them) - and thousands of years ago there was no detectable signs of life here besides the promise of life by our own atmosphere signature. The reverse, we looking outside into space, is also true. We're looking things as they were thousands of years ago. Not as they're now.
@@miks564 Wow!! That's incredible!!
"There is no meaning OF life. There is meaning IN life."
--- Dan Barker
Tripe
@@cosmictreason2242 how? I can't tell if you're a nihilist or religious lol
@@JaceDeanLove it’s a distinction without a difference fallacy in the context it exists in. It’s like saying “there is no space-time continuum, there is a continuum of time within space.” We know that to be mathematically false
@@cosmictreason2242 Oh, FFS.
Go away. You make no sense, and that's obviously your purpose here.
You really don't understand what Barker's saying here and to whom and in what context he says it?
There IS an obvious difference. I'm thinking you looked it up on a list of logical fallacies and thinks it works here. It doesn't.
There IS no meaning OF life. We arr a cosmic accident. We are not special beings, put here by the hand of God to do his bidding. Religion is silly and unnecessary to live a healthy and satisfying life. And...it's the only one you get. So...
GTF outta here and try to get something positive out of YOURS.
Cosmic treason...Ray Comfort????SMFH...ROFLMFAO!!
@@JaceDeanLove
He has a Ray Comfort video on his channel. One video.
...I'm going to have to listen to this episode a couple of times...I found myself arguing (in my mind) so many times, I did not really absorb it all. I believe that what this channel does is very important and it is worth the effort and for me a chance to practice really listening before jumping into an argument. Thank you for what you do.
LOL! You’re not alone. I did the same thing. I had to go back and re-listen to those parts I wasn’t paying attention to.
That gives more views, I guess!
I often pause these vids bcos my mind can't help pull at the inconsistencies, after vigorously hour or more thinking on it I end up coming back, depending on how much I've exhausted my brain I'll repeat the process until I'm able to just sit & listen lol.
Yeah, just did this myself.
The "Unplanned Pregnancy" line is especially amusing to me, as that's my favorite analogy for why that argument is faulty. Would you REALLY believe that someone who was born of an unplanned pregnancy lives a meaningless life, while those whose parents thought "Yes, I would like to have a child now" have meaningful ones? Is that how you treat the people around you? I'm guessing for the vast majority of people it is not. And yet that's the claim this argument makes: That being "accidental" makes one less valuable, less "meaningful" in some key way.
A person conceived accidentally can still live a happy and fulfilling life, just like anyone born purposefully can, and we all know that. But somehow when we think about the human race as a whole being born "accidentally", this knowledge is forgotten. And yet the result is the same. Even if humanity was born of a mindless chemical process, WE still experience life, and joy, and meaning. We might not receive "value" from some external source, but we readily grant it to ourselves and to our fellow humans. And that's the part that matters. Not what our species's "parents" wanted for us, but the life we can make for ourselves now that we're here.
Wait. If humans are not pinnacle of universe, how comes we win all Miss and Mister Universe?
We don't advertise the event to the rest of the universe.
For the same reason the World Series winner is always a North American team...
@@dlevi67 No, the reason for this is that the World Series was never meant to be a world competition of any sort. The name comes from it being propagated by the New York World newspaper.
@@doloreslehmann8628 Exactly. It's a misnomer... just like the Miss/Mr Universe titles, which are so called because the entity organising the pageants is the "Miss Universe Organisation".
I heard from an insider source that the competitions are rigged.
Even though I am a Christian I still enjoy watching your videos and learning how you challenge most of my beliefs.
As an atheist, I like watching theistic content just to make sure I'm not dismissing things out of hand. I'm glad to see a theist who does the same in reverse.
I am happy these are respectful comments, I also do fall on the other side and their is no need to attack each other.
It's amazing how frequently offensive apologists are when making arguments. Using "the ultimate unplanned pregnancy" as a metaphor for us being an unspecial, cosmic accident, thus implying that an unplanned child isn't special or has much value. Apologists can be so gross sometimes.
I find it abhorrent that they refuse to concede on cases where the poor girl is a child herself; or a victim of rape or incest.
Why should that woman or child have to go full term and bear the rememberance of the violence, and hate, and pain, and disrespect this victim had put upon them? And a political party, the Republicans, believes that it has a right to what goes on in her own body after that trauma. Fuck that.
Some Republican jackass is talking about making a Rape Board, which would assess the victim for worthiness of abortion. 🙁 Is this Gilead?
Has America gone stark raving mad?
Reinstate Roe v Wade federally and get religion out of politics!
Looking at the red elephant in the room.
It’s also funny because that phrase still implies we’re special
I feel this, my son was unplanned but he’s the light of my world, and I’m so glad genetics works the way it does, it feels like he got all the good parts of me and replaced the bad parts with stuff from my partner, accidents can be more special than something planed, I had no real expectations of him, I didn’t want him to be anything, all I could think of was “damn, I guess I’m a dad now”, and I think this relates to the video a lot, trying to fill expectations will make you very closed minded and you’ll need to make sure others fall in line, but if you just accept what is, you’ll better realize the beauty in the real world, not a made up one
Coming to terms with relative morality was difficult, but oddly relieving for me. I have a tempered optimism towards humanity... Since morality is not absolute, it can be molded with knowledge and understanding, allowing for an increasingly empathetic culture. Though it would be naive of me to ignore how it can be pushed in the other direction, towards a sadistic, totalitarian morality system that makes scapegoats out of the vulnerable.
@jacobb3573 Yep. Basically the point that I attempted, tho maybe not with much clarity (knowing my track record), to get across with the latter half of my comment.
The odd thing is that we don't have to look far to see that morality is not objective but subjective. The USA still has capital punishment as a last resort, most other developed countries have moved past that. That's present day right now anyone can look it up information, but Turek is ignorant of it.
Slavery was A-OK for a long time, now even the USA is rejecting it.
@@ziploc2000 "now even the USA is rejecting it" as if we haven't rejected it for over 150 years.
@@The_Real_Frisbee "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." in the last election cycle, several states finally abolished prison slave labor, but a bunch more still practice it.
Wanting to believe that morality is objective is literally the same thing as having an unsophisticated, "black and white" view of the world. Even if objective morality did exist, it's not even really correct to say that moral systems founded in religion are objective, they are absolutist moral systems, not objective. The fact of the matter is, calling something objective or absolute allows people to disengage their critical thinking skills, and simply defer to some claimed authority. It is not principled at all to claim that morality is objective or absolute, it's lazy. In reality morality is complicated, and what's right or wrong is often unclear. It is lazy and cowardly to propose that there exists some unimpeachable moral authority that you simply must obey without question. In my opinion, the primary reason why people will subscribe to an idea like objective or absolute morality is because it's just easier to do so than to accept the truth that life is complicated, because if you accept that life is full of complexities and nuances, that means you have to actually think for yourself, and thinking is hard. This is why this will always be a problem, because the appeal (for some people, at least) of letting someone or something do your thinking for you will always be attractive, and minimizing your effort both physical and mental is a practical concern that will always be relevant. The battle we fight against ignorance and laziness is a battle with ourselves and our own natural, human tendencies.
YOU LITERALLY CITED MY FAVORITE ESSAY EVER!!!! I referenced The Emotional Dog and it's Rational Tail so many times at my Christian university, I'm shocked they didn't kick me out!!!!!!
as a new atheist, so many of the arguments from people around me trying to pull me back into Christianity sickened me, because of their inherent manipulative nature. then I found this channel and I couldn't feel more at home. thanks for the entertainment.
I ditched Christianity many years ago, and I'm only now becoming aware of who Jesus actually was. Christianity manipulated the words of a man that was enlightened. They made it seem as though achieving enlightenment was only possible after death. The church cemented its authority through fear and manipulation. "What would Jesus do?" He would dismantle modern Christianity and show that the church isn't serving the message he had whatsoever. Zen Buddhism has shown to me what Christianity ought to be, a way of thinking (or rather non-thinking) that allows each of us to live our own lives.
It's sad when simple, great teachings about living in the moment, not being attached to wealth, and treating others with respect are twisted into the creating of great suffering on our planet.
You’re a wonderful human being and I applaud your sincere endeavours! Thank you for being so fantastic and logical. Please don’t let the sects get you down. The work you are doing is unbelievable and helps so many people..like myself. You and your wife should keep doing the wonderful work that you’re doing 😊
Bob Ross unintentionally explained humanity's role regarding the fine tuning argument, "We don't make mistakes, we just have happy accidents."
Good vid 👌
Yes, existential dread is a huge factor but as you mention it is also massive egocentrism.
Divine hiddeness is what I tend to dwell on.
IMO if the God of the Bible were true we would all believe and their would only ever be one religion.
Since that's obviously not the case...
That’s a side of the Hiddenness Argument that gets really understated. It’s not just that God chooses to not reveal himself to individuals now but that he has not done so in an organized way across cultures. If that sort of cross cultural witness to a similar revelation emerged I’d probably believe.
Just want to say "Thank you Drew" your channel has been a blessing for me. Never stop producing content :)
I found the peace I had been praying for when I finally admitted to myself that I was an atheist. I no longer suffered from any existential crises. I fully accept the pointlessness of existence and I honestly find it soothing. It means that my life is my own. I think that's a beautiful thing.
In the end, I believe that much of religion is founded on fear and an unwillingness to face the unknown. Rather than accepting that everything is meaningless and that we get to make our lives our own, people use religion as a psychological crutch. I do believe religion has some value in society and as a historical area of study, but I also believe that people would be so much kinder to each other if religion died.
Why do you believe that people would be kinder?
In general, religion creates an "us vs. them" mentality. This is admittedly just a generalization, but it's also just one of many reasons that religion is responsible for so much hate.
@@realsoupersand
True
But it can also unify people
As with any group
It’s human tribalism that’s the problem not religion itself.
Also it seems that your thesis isn’t true
Religion is declining in the US however political polarization has increased. Get rid of religion and you leave a vacuum for a new belief system to divide people.
That's fair. Let's take the same sentiment, but replace "religion" with "dogma." That expands it to include more than just religious beliefs. That said, some people in the United States clearly worship their political idols...
@@realsoupersand
That includes the left
If perhaps not idols then ideas
This is not a God of Truth, but a God of Utility.
God: "Objective morality exists"
Also God: *Commits countless atrocities, genocides, crimes against humanity, punishing the innocent, etc *
The people who say morality can't be objective UNLESS THERE'S A GOD need to take an intro to philosophy class NOW
Respect for that guy who had the courage to stand up to Turek. That guy's aggression personified.
Yeah, but he could have been better prepared.
Turek: "You can't say that rape, genocide and slavery are evil."
Me: "As soon YHWH commands you, like multiple times in the Old Testament, you will rape, commit genocide and enslave people, saying that that's the morally good thing to do."
Turek: blabla "YHWH is God" bladibla.
Me: "That's the very definition of subjective - your moral judgments depend on the subject you call YHWH."
@@marknieuweboer8099 That's the next step in the argument, yeah. Show that authoritarian morality is at least as subjective as humanism. More so, really, as what causes harm can be demonstrated by evidence, which is NOT true of god claims.
But there's no way Turek would allow his interlocutor to get there; I'm sure he knows perfectly well what he's doing when he presupposes authoritarianism and acts as if humanism can't be real.
Yeah, I don't think so either, but me being a nasty Dutchman would probably thank him for not allowing to make my point.
Prediction for at least one argument: Believing in god is comforting to people regardless of if he exists.
That's such a short-sighted argument, too. Let's ignore the consequences of generations of people believing something big about the world that just isn't true, because it makes them more comfortable with less effort to believe in it now.
Couldn’t we also say that in an atheist worldview it’s also comfortable to know there isn’t any God and objective morality isn’t real either so there is really nothing to worry about?
I mean the comforting argument goes both ways. All of our personal beliefs have an element of comfort to them.
@@UnstoppableFloridaMan I’m an atheist & I would love for there to some big, comforting place for my soul to go to when I die. To be able to, essentially, live forever. There’s very little comfort in knowing that you’re just the beneficiary of the cosmic lottery, my dude. But it’s what appears to be the case. You wouldn’t run around saying you had a billion dollars in the bank cause it makes you feel better. At the end of the day, you’re still broke.
But does that harm anyone?
@@UnstoppableFloridaMan The difference is, athiests don't make the argument they don't believe in a god because it comforts them. There's just no evidence they exist.
In the same vein, you could say I'm comforted by the fact that eldrich abominations don't exist, but I don't doubt their existance for that reason.
I believe that the informal fallacy that underpins many of these arguments is called "appeal to the consequences." It is also telling that poorly understood subjects such as consciousness and the fundamental nature of the cosmos form so much of the substance of the arguments.
Appeals to consequences are also interesting because they will creep into the person's conception of God, even when they would otherwise say that they believe God to be truly, objectively good. For example, saying "God works in mysterious ways, it all works out toward the greater good" as a response to the Problem of Evil is an accidental acknowledgement that it's okay with God that something bad happens to you if something equally good or better happens to me. That would, if true, make God a sort of utilitarian. Clearly they don't MEAN that, but they get so wrapped up in the consequence model that God himself stops making sense as anything but a consequentialist.
Even people like Aquinas got to this point. "God wouldn't allow evil except to result in an even greater good," and left implicit in there is "Right? He's got to, or otherwise why would he allow it?"
Drew is the epitome of the moral Atheist (from my perspective, anyway). He uses logic and can divorce it from emotional appeals while still being kind and understanding. I would be incredibly interested to see the videos he would have made on these subjects when he was a believer. To be able to contrast and see if they would have been approached in a similar manner. I don't know if his intellectual honesty has come by way of his sincere introspection upon first feeling doubts, or if the doubts came by way of his intellectual honesty. It's probably a moot point, but I feel like most people who deconvert go through an incredible amount of cognitive dissonance, so I have a lot of respect for anyone who can do this and stay true to themselves. Just something to consider.
This is the first time I had heard these points of view - that the premises are the things people want to believe, and not necessarily the conclusion, but that the conclusion supports the premises (God exists because morality is object, and morality is objective because God exists). It makes so much more sense why some people would be so stubborn with regard to maintaining these beliefs. The bottomless pit of dread that sits under the rope of these arguments they cling to prevents them from even considering a flaw in the argument. Great video!
The more I look into theistic belief the more hilarious their arguments appear. I laughed so hard at all the theist beliefs presented here. It was wonderful. I don't get to laugh like this often. It really has to do with self care. Thanks for the video. Lovely as always.
You do realise that these are not the views of most theists but Christian fundamentalists
2:50 "... rape ... slavery .."
Of course the Bible doesn't condemn either of those, Christianity morality itself is relative.
Great video as always. I've heard them before, but I enjoyed thinking about them in some new context. I've also seen them discussed by Tibetan Buddhists like the His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.
The counter to the argument for objective morality seems self-evident to me; of course racism, slavery, and fascism are morally acceptable to some people... they persisted for ages in various forms even into today. If they were objectively wrong, no person who isn't making the choice to be immoral would espouse their "virtues". You've discussed it before; most people think these things are wrong because we evolved to desire community over division, but they've chosen short-sighted security and their own insular community over all others.
The counter to the argument from fine-tuning can start with the anthropic principle; that we naturally find humans in a universe that can support human life and leaves the door open for other sorts of universes to potentially exist somewhere. When the theist starts talking about how we must then be a cosmic accident without purpose, the counter is that this is the ultimate freedom: we as humans can do and accomplish and build anything within such a universe so long as it is obeys the laws of physics. We are not bound by a cosmic purpose; we are free to decide on our own what that purpose will be. It can lead to nihilism, sure, but it can lead to anything else.
For the objective morality argument, I don’t think someone would always have to deliberately choose to be immoral; they may just not have a full understanding of the rules, just as not everyone who makes a mistake in a math problem is doing so deliberately.
I keep wondering why, if we get our morality from God, do we let God get away, frequently, with atrocities. Either committing them or allowing them to happen when he could stop it.
You also have to wonder how anything good done for humanity is always done by god but anything bad for humanity is:
a) the victims deserved it; or
b) it was done by those who were led astray by evil
Stuff works out and it’s “God is good!” Stuff doesn’t work out and it’s “we live in a fallen world.”
What atrocities has God ever committed? If you give me a list I can answer in a list format. If good things come our way it's because God is merciful, if bad things it's because God is just.
@@LordUrfael Based on what? Some contradictory statements? An order to drown innocent children? A call for slavery?
I'd rather not be one cult inadvisable Under a piece of fiction never ment to be taken literally in the first place with fearful followers and power for the brainwashed.
@@LordUrfael “If God does good thing, me grateful. If God do bad thing, I cope”
1. Put Adam and Eve in a garden, knowing the outcome of such actions, still instructing the apple not to be eaten, and punishing Eve and Adam upon eating it.
2. Ordered the killing of women and babies in the Bible
3. Flooded the world for its problems based on point 1, which again I say, it’s a fruition that he himself brought to existence.
4. The entirety of Job
Many arguments for God I hear people make do boil down to massive hubris: that all of existence revolves around humanity, that we are the pinnacle of life, and the only possible way humans could exist is a Perfect Being creating us, and any other path means we are nothing.
Feels like extraordinary ego to me.
I knew it all along. The Bible was written by megalomaniacs who desperately wanted to be special.
They aren't looking to help people. They are looking to share their FEAR. Nothing annoys a Christian more than someone who doesn't share their FEAR.
I make fun of their fears. That annoys them even more. They hate being mocked so much they've labeled it blasphemy and heresy in order to try to force people to stop.
I find it hilarious when religious people say "Atheism reduces humans to garbage", because religion is always telling people they are garbage and will amount to nothing without god.
"remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shall return."
Thanks Drew for cutting through to the truth again.
Your presentation style is so good. I don’t even consider atheism a choice, it’s just default worldview until evidence to the contrary presents itself.
"One of the most fundamental statements of faith is this: your life is not about you. You’re not in control. This is not your project; rather, you are part of God’s great design. To believe this in your bones and to act accordingly is to have faith. When we operate out of this transformed vision, amazing things can happen, for we have surrendered to "a power already at work in us that can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine." Even a tiny bit of faith makes an extraordinary difference."
Bishop Robert Barron
The primary reason almost all apologetics arguments (and by extension, apologists themselves) exist is to reassure doubting believers, not to bring non-believers into the fold (since they are rarely effective for that). Thus, it is not surprising to find emotionally resonant claims and premises in the most popular arguments.
I really like the thought you brought up with this and am stunned how you are able to continuously find these schemas in arguments.
Nevertheless, I would like to extend on your premise: Are not all arguments for God not about God?
Let me explain:
I've come to the conclusion that most religions see God as the "good" way to live or the one that knows the "good" way to live. Especially, in the biblical wisdom literature, this is depicted. God defines the rules of the universe, thus creates the world. As he defined the rules of everything, he knows the "good" way to act any time. In Genesis, the human split paths with God and is since trying to find back to God by living "goodly" / according to God. (That is not true for every religion. However, most times Gods represent laws of nature, which you have to know in order to act in a "good" way.)
Now to my point:
You explained that humans often like to believe in a certain premise and thus argument for God. For instance, the first Argument takes the premise that morale is absolute. If you believe there is an absolute way to act in a "good" way and define God as this one "good" way, then this can easily be true.
Accordingly, everything that is "good" is a premise, which describes God, thus giving an "argument for God". Furthermore, I feel that subsequently every argument for God describes something that we see as "good" - meaning an other premise which is not actually "about God".
Does this make any sense? I just thought of that in reaction to this video. I'd really appreciate any comment on this train of thought.
It makes sense, but there are arguments "for God", that do not use "goodness", I think. Like, bible prophecies, while being an absolutely trashy argument, do not use "good" as a premise.
When I was a kid and working my way out of a sort of received Christian worldview, I felt profound existential dread, literally constantly. Now, I don't, but it took like the entirety of my young life and a lot of philosophy to turn myself around on it. I think the thing that really cemented it for me was realizing that I don't think I want life to be subordinated to a higher purpose; this fundamentally defeats the point of the freedom of consciousness. I can't find a way to reconcile an appreciation of free will with an absolute moral order or a God-given purpose for one's life that satisfies me, so in the end I think it's better to reject it and find other ways of thinking about ethics than imagining transcendent norms.
So how should morality and values be build in your mind?
Great video! Thanks for putting your thoughts together so nicely!
The placement of the podium shield at 2:38 is just *chef's kiss*.
The fact that we’re just the random chance of the universe is actually more wondrous for me. We’re not an unplanned pregnancy, we’re a miracle.
There may be many types of random chance intelligent life in the universe, but we’re the only humans. It’s absolutely amazing.
The fact that the universe is so infinitely large and still we happen to be here, on this rock, being uniquely human in the entire infinity of the cosmos… that’s amazing.
I felt the same way when I read the Catholic Catechism's justification for God creating from nothing instead of preexisting material. They analogized it to an artisan, and said that if God could just use the same materials as a human craftsman, there wouldn't be anything special about God's work. To me, that's exactly backwards: It's not impressive at all if someone can snap his fingers and poof the Eiffel Tower into existence. If you give identical blocks of marble and the same tools to a poor sculptor and a master, the master will produce something much more beautiful, nuanced, and artistic than the poor sculptor. That's why we appreciate masterpieces: Using the same stuff I can buy at a hobby store, this person has employed knowledge and skill I will never have in service of something unique. I would be far more impressed if God -- working under the same material limitations as humans and through painstaking, careful, and incredibly precise processes -- could fashion things that humans could only stand in complete awe of. Because I'd know that I *could have* done that, if only I had the same wisdom and skill, and the fact that I don't deepens my appreciation for the one who does. I'll never be able to just will something into being.
Really, it's the difference between someone building something amazing in Minecraft in Survival and someone doing it with Creative. It can be impressive either way, but it's more impressive if you don't have a bunch of readily-accessible cheats to help you do it.
Only humans that you know of 💀
2:15
"If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist"
If moral values are dependent on God's existence, does that make them SUBJECTIVE rather than objective?
they'd be objective
@@racoon251 but they are dependent on an additional factor, in this case: a god existing, then that is subjective surely?
@@LittleMAC78 what do you think subjective means?
@@racoon251 subjective is dependent on feelings rather than facts.
@@LittleMAC78 I suppose you are supposing God has feelings.
Thank you for sharing GMS! For anyone looking to avoid media bias and compare coverage, click the link in the pinned comment.
I see it too among my religion as well. Many religious people told me that conciseness comes from God and that I should be religious and I will see the one and only truth. And that if I won't I will burn in hell. I find it hilarious and too easy the way they suggest it. I am proud of having a brain and realizing this can't be true. I am willingly Jewish but not a religious one because I do have a some what level of skepticism and not just about Judaism. This is why I love this channel so I can learn different opinions and new things. Intelligence means more to me than religion. I even got a threat from a religious person that if I will eat Pork God will strike me down before I am 30. I do eat Pork from time to time, I am 36 now and God did not strike me down. The point is that such threats exist in any religion we just need to kick this bullshit out and to believe in our way like I do or not believing at all.
I have a friend that dabbles in Buddhism. It's that kind of watery kind like you, (no offense) that doesn't take all of it seriously but just thinks a good way of living aligns with some parts of the religion. It's kind of annoying to me that people like this are used by extremists to boost their statistics and garner more attention.
@@nati0598 Non taken that's alright I get you. I despise extremists who try to force themselves on others to say that their way is the right way or that there is only one way. Hell no but I could say that Judaism is the only right way for me. That doesn't hurt anyone or forcing anyone. And I am not trying to convince anyone that Judaism is the way. I also don't like it when someone tells you he is a "friend of God" and that if you will pay him small amount every month he will teach you how to be God's friend also.
Yeaaaah, it really does feel like a lot of these boil down to putting a salve on existential fears of what it means to live in a chaotic universe where we aren't the chosen-iest chosen ones to ever have beenc chosen.
I grew out of those fears years ago. Where a lot of people see a deep dark abyss from which anything can emerge to destroy them... I see a universe full of strange new things to learn, and I wonder at all the stuff we've managed to achieve despite how tiny and insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things.
As a believer, I felt endless despair, because I felt like I was intrinsically doomed and no matter how hard I tried, I was a "worthless sinner" who deserved punishment (despite being a total goody two shoes). ...As a non-believer, I feel wonder and awe at the universe, and I feel content and free as a tiny, insignificant part of a vast universe.
Finally, it's really kind of incredible how a lot of fundamentalist claim to be *suuuper* humble before their god... While the entire thing is an exercise in making them feel like super special chosen ones.
Oh, that's curious. I felt mostly relief when I finally put Christianity and its rules that I had been struggling with for... years behind me. I no longer had to worry about the fact that my own morality didn't match up with the admittedly very conservative and fundamentalist version of Christianity I had grown up with. There was a lot of cognitive dissonance I was able to release with rejecting Christianity.
I mean, I still have General Anxiety and my Behavioral Nurse Practitioner (therapy is full up in my area) thinks I've got Avoidant Personality Disorder (and she's probably right). So it's not like all my problems went away. It was just one area of my life that I was able to let go and not stress over anymore. And I've still got... lots of other areas where I just... can't.
I'm an atheist. I don't have any existential crisis. I'm not junk.
Facs
You wouldn't believe what she found...
Christians hate her!!!
Nice seeing someone who knows that their value isn't based on one 'person's opinion of them :)
I always think its interesting if the universe was fine tuned for human life then logically the vast majority of the universe would be accessible and inhabitable, it must have been an interesting moment when it was discovered that when you leave the earth you suddely run out of atmosphere.... Yet it isnt even if we localise this to just the planet then the it would probably benefit humans to have been "created " aquatic.
I like the way you think, I like the way you express the ideas. You are a life saver too many people.
You are entitled to a degree of pride. Not too much though, remember what comes after pride, lol.
Seriously you are something of a humanitarian treasure. Cheers.
This was the first video of yours I've seen, and I just want to thank you for your calmness, respectfulness, fairness, and rationale. =) We need more of all those qualities in these kinds of discussions!
Although I've been having similar views on the arguments you present here, I've never been able to put it quite so eloquently.
And with all the "intelligent design" arguments (aka "the ultimate unplanned pregnancy", goodness what an analogy!), I find it more amazing to marvel about beating the odds of us being here! I mean, some philosophies would argue that there was always a 100% chance of everything that has happened to have happen, because it did, but the odds of this little spec of dust to have heard your voice and even (probably) understood what you were saying is kind of awesome in my mind.
And at the same time completely irrelevant, depending on ones perspective, and I find that quite cool to tbh. ^^
Anyway, sorry 'bout the rambling. Thanks again! =)
Saying morality isnt objective is probably the best way to go about things to leave room for society to change and for nuanced interpretations of complicated situations. If morality is objective then killing is always wrong even if its a means to save your own life or a means to prevent them from suffering and passively letting someone die is always wrong even though you couldn't realistically help them without harming yourself.
And objectivity means that we cant disagree on the above and discuss it.
2:35 - OMFG! Turek is speaking to a saint with a halo.
Haha, on the spot. I wonder if Turek approves the genocidal flood in genesis. Nice example of god's unmeasurable morality!
I don’t know why it has to be such a bad thing if everything that happens is chance. To me that is beautiful. I choose to see it that way. I hold no illusions of a just world phenomena, realize that making music makes me happy, enjoy exercise, and want to see beautiful natural wonders. That is my meaning. Oh, can’t forget how good food tastes. The way the chemicals in my brain light up when I eat pho, or chana saag… nothing like it. That’s my meaning. I make it for myself. I am gonna go out kicking and screaming. I love being alive.
@Jacob B haha nice!
If the universe is "fine tuned" (it's not) for anything, then it's finely tuned for empty space and black holes.
Santa Claus, the easter bunny, the tooth fairy, the great pumpkin and finally god.
5:35 I have realized that people who are proud of their labels like "theist" really enjoy labeling others too, or at least need labels to interpret things like "atheist", "sinner", "cosmic junk".
What does it matter if we are cosmic junk or not? Why do we have to have a higher purpose instead of just living our life to the fullest and then leave this planet when the time comes?
It seems that even this is baked in the belief of God (the fact that we are all loved by God therefore each and every one of us is important in a cosmological sense)
Regardless if you believe in God or not you should realize that you only got this one life, and the existential thread can easily hit you if you waste your life, regardless of belief or not.
Such theists don't care about this one Earthly life (especially not whenbit concerns other people) because they expect afterlife to be so much better. So yes, it does matter.
@@marknieuweboer8099 honestly makes sense now that you mention it!
Thanks for the insight!
My favorite is when Christian’s bring up objective morality and site that the nazis were bad. I’m like…your god also committed racial genocide?
If you need an external force’s intentions to make your life meaningful, was it ever meaningful?
if humans are special then here are a few species they should add to the 'special' list:
- Chimps & other apes
- Dogs/Cats
- Birds (ravens & parrots especially)
- Elephants
- Cetaceans
and those are only the ones I could think of.
all of them have high intelligence and can interact with object in ways similar to humans (for example - tool use. search in Wikipedia for "Tool use by animals" and see all the species listed there)
Because of other animal special-ness, we can learn things about ourselves such as the fact that "alpha-males" don't really exist. Any leader who is abusive/unfair is taken down by the group. We'd think (and did) all kinds of garbage without having other animals to study. There's strong empathy and morals in animals even though they lack the higher intelligence of the frontal lobes. They laugh, they cry, they mourn, they love, they plan, they take care of each others offspring or other kinds of animals sometimes. Religious people need to look at our current understanding of our fellow earthlings. Great Post!
Ants! Not as individuals but as groups. You might be interested in swarm intelligence.
I have a story that explains moral relativism. A young boy was hanged for stealing an apple to feed his starving sister. When I first started reading the story I was horrified. What kind of people would do such a thing? But as I continue to read I found out that everyone in the village was starving. Apples were one of the few foods they had. The apples were being rationed out so that they would last. So, what the boy did was wrong. Far from being a harmless act that harmed no one, the stealing of the apple put the whole village at risk of starvation. Stealing food during a famine has to be discouraged at all cost. I learned from this story that whether or not an action is moral or immoral depends on the circumstances. This is what moral relativism means to me.
This video does a great job of exposing the guilt / fear-based / emotionally charged rhetoric that sits underneath christian apologetic presentations.
I think it also explains why the likes of Frank Turek using Nazi examples (like the one in this video) simply cannot intimidate the likes of Alex O'Connor (Cosmic Skeptic) or Christopher Hitchens in debates.
Thinkers that can see those intimidation tactics and can respond by referencing good principles always win debates with theists - in my opinion.
A great example of this was the debate between Christopher Hitchens & Stephen Fry v.s. Ann Widdecombe & Archbishop Onaiyekan - "Is the catholic church a force for good?"
A large live audience is polled at the start and close to 40% believe that the catholic church is a force for good with about 10% undecided. At the end of the debate - about 10% believe the catholic church is a force for good, with about 1% undecided.
Great thinkers and speakers like Hitchens & Fry can empower audiences to not be guilted or afraid of not believing in gods and afterlives anymore.
God didnt create us in his image, we created gods in ours.
My least favorite thing that theists say is “if there’s no god then why don’t you go around raping and murdering?” Or something like that because it suggests that the only reason they are nice is because they want to get something which I feel is selfish and makes that person a bad person if that makes sense
It's one of my favourites, because it's so easy to make these theists look stupid. "By all means keep on believing in your imaginary sky daddy. You just admitted that without you fearing him will go on a nice raping and killing spree immediately. Civilized unbelievers like me don't."
So yes, you do make sense.
I find it funny that theists claim that humans are “accidents” according to atheists. No, because an accident would also imply that there was some sort of plan with life and that we weren’t the intended result. We’re saying that there was no plan to begin with.
The meaning is that humans are "accidental" to the mechanics of the universe, that the laws of physics exist without reference or subordination to the creation and existence of humans.
That the longest side of a triangle is shorter than the other two sides added together is not "accidental," it is a direct result of the mechanics of a cartesian field. It literally could not be any other way on a flat plane. According to the atheistic argument, humans are accidental in that there is no particular reason that humans MUST exist according to the governing laws of physics.
On the contrary, the Christian argument is that part of the reason God made the universe in the first place is so that people would get to know and love Him and each other. Therefore, the existence of rational persons is foundational to the universe's existence in some capacity; thus, people are not accidental.
@@whitebeans7292
You literally just proved my point. You’re assuming that there is intent behind the way the universe is. That’s something you need to actually prove.
@@LucareonVee I gave 2 different arguments, I didn't assume there was intent in the universe for the atheistic argument. I wasn't trying to prove the existence of God, I was trying to say that "accidental" has the same meaning as "by chance" in the sentence "Human beings are accidental in the universe."
Things are accidental if they did not have to be but are. Logically, 1+1 must be 2, so 1+1=2 is not accidental. Just because something is NOT accidental, does not mean that it was on purpose (chosen by free will). It could be the result of other true things. Things fall because of gravity, so falling things are not accidental--they have a cause.
@@whitebeans7292
And our cause was that various species bred in nature where the traits we had were better suited to our ability to survive and continue to breed. If you want to see that as “by chance,” then go ahead. It still doesn’t say intent to me. Intent is what I need to see. All I see otherwise is observable reality.
If only ANY Christian studied only a little bit of neurochemistry. It could answer so many of their questions about thought, memories and even consciousness. Even moderate Christians always absolutely REFUSE to listen to me even remotely talk about neurochemistry. And then their argument is "how do you know?" Because we've been able to see chemical reactions firing off in the brain at every moment, and we've even been able to match certain patterns to emotions and actions? Their response then is "oh, but who MADE it like that? That's so perfect."
To which I say, well it isn't perfect for one, things go wrong, people have mental disorders and stuff like that, it is anything but perfect, and also, my talking about science doesn't inherently attempt to disprove a deity, as it would be an absurd goal for a study to do so, but just as you cannot prove a god exists, you also can't completely disprove one. But what does "proving gods" mean? Do people think they understand completely that which they also state is far too great for us to even witness? Even if there was a god, we still wouldn't be able to prove one existed, because the reason I already stated, plus that it would not match up to any god humans have ever thought of, so they wouldn't even be called gods at that point. It is a pointless argument, and as an atheist, outside of pointing out facts, or trying to help people learn, I hardly ever try and engage in a conversation about religion unless it is just thrown into the conversation and won't leave
by contrast, Buddhist monks tend to love neuroscience. "hell yea, hook my brain up to whatever instruments you got. i want to see what it's doing when i meditate."
As a Christian with a mother who is a nurse and a father who is a Radiologist, I am actually curious. What specifically about human neurochemistry disproves the existence of God? Historically, Christians such as Thomas Aquinas would have no problem with saying your physical body affects or has something to do with your mind. If man is a union of body and soul, it makes perfect sense that things that affect your body would have an indirect affect on your soul.
One thing that I realized after I left Christianity is that I didn't want some divine purpose; I just wanted to exist.
Sure, I had my own fears about what happens after I die, I'm sure everyone has. But I'm not coming back because of fear.
And Christianity didn't stop me from having an existential crisis anyway.
No, I was 9 or 10 when I understood that there is no reason to fear being dead. I was not around before my parents had sex either.
The process of dying is what I fear.
As someone with General Anxiety, I can definitely tell you that emotions are *_not_* rational! Like, at all. Why am I anxious? I've got no fucking clue. I just know that I am and I can't just will or logic it away. It's there and I have to deal with it. Some days I can handle it better than others. And some days, I just have to go back to bed.
I have long noticed how religion stems mostly from our inability to make sense of our existence and, specially, of our death. If you have been taught since you're a kid that when you die, you don't really die, it means you have never actually thought about death, never had to trully deal with its implications. No matter how well put are some arguments against the existence of a god or afterlife, it will force people to think about their inevitable death, including the death of consciousness, so they will always run into this cognitive dissonance.
I highly recommend the two-part video form TheraminTrees about death.
Amazing content as always. Thank you!
Wait how was that first religious guy trying to prop up the idea of objective morality by saying rape and slavery are of course objectively bad, while his bible advocates for both..??
Indeed. The apologist answer makes it even worse: because YHWH is the creator god, hence by definition good and we humans have no choice to obey. Morals hence depend on the subject called YHWH, are subjective and justified by the Divine Führer Principle. This Dutchman by now begins to understand the rise of christofascism in the USA.
Always so grateful for your perspective, thank you for your work! While I have long been an atheist, each of your videos gives me something new and fun to consider. Thank you again!
A perspective: it boils down to the cognitive and emotional maturity required to reconcile with temporality, individual mortality. Many people haven't arrived; hence the God-as-Father construct. I am convinced that comfort narrative drives most God assertion.
I like how confident people are saying that human consciousness can't be explained naturalistcally.. I wonder why people are so sure about that. I don't see any reason why we couldnt discover how this works in the future.
Not long ago, people would say a machine could never be creative. Look at what A.I. already does. And compared to a biological brain, these artificial neural networks are absolutely simple, yet they can produce artistic images in a matter of seconds.. Who knows maybe the computer in a 100 years from now on is so complicated that it inherintely develops a consciousness.
No objective morality means "Nothing wrong with Nazis, rape, slavery". If you were a Nazi, or a rapist, or a slave owner, you'd probably agree with that statement. The bible does not condemn slavery, it sets stronger punishment on the woman being raped than the rapist, and god orders his followers to perform ethnic cleansing on foreign nations.
Morality, as practiced by religions, is totally subjective.
LIsten. I'm christian, but god damn you're making me an atheist.
Probably most religious people don't want any God, they want a god who specifically fits their ideology.
Love this channel. As a Christian, there's nothing better than seeing the other side and questioning if you should believe what you believe
I just wish other christians didn't turn into cult followers and attack others for alternate beliefs. Its ironic and it goes against what they believe
GMS, Drew, lol, when you were talking about the cosmological argument, you were saying how it's our egos, we could say the universe was created for gas pockets, etc. I immediately though of George Carlin saying our beautiful blue planet wanted plastic! It created us to make plastic, and now will shake us off like the parasites we are! LOL. 👍💙💖🥰✌
If people genuinely need God to have morals, then I beg them to keep believing. If someone needs a god to tell them it’s wrong to kill or to 🍇 someone, then by all means, read the holy book and everything. I just don’t need a god to tell me not to do that, so I’m an atheist.
Thanks
Consciousness is fundamental. No gods required.
When I was younger, I was raised in a Christian house by my mom and stuff. It wasn't until, like, a few years ago when I kinda went, "oh, I'm agnostic" after years of just... questioning things kind of. I don't think about religion 😭
The ONE thing that stands out to me the most that makes me wonder if there is a God or not, is from when I was in around 4th~5th grade [I'm 18 as of right now.] There was drawing at the school with a $50 Walmart gift card [3 students out of I believe 300 something would've won it], and little ol' 8~10 y/o me legit prayed every night to get the card 😭 I did actually end up getting my name drawn- it took a few months for the drawing to actually, welll, get drawn, so it was months of little me begging a Sky Man for $50 😭 I did use it on food though so that was helpful.
EITHER WAY, I'm still agnostic and kind of just like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ on everything. Cause everything is just, like, one big chunk of "aaaaaaa???" to me 😭 It's weird when people ask me to pray for them now cause I'm just the person standing emoji when that happens 😭
Wait, animals don't have consciousness?
Yeah, they're government drones
I didn't understand that either.
Depends on the definition mostly. If being aware of your surroundings and acting accordingly mean consciousness, then yeah, all living beings and even lifeless chemicals can be conscious. So you have to narrow it down to being capable of intellectual awareness of what happens in your own body and change it any way you would want as much as the body allows. Although this definition isn't foolproof either, it has considerably narrowed down the definition to include the actions mostly observed only in humans.
@@amazingcalvin is it not possible that animals do indeed have consciousness in the same way we understand humans to have it but because they lack they lack the ability to communicate with us, or at least to articulate thought verbally to the same level of complexity as us, that we do not recognise it as being the same?
@@LittleMAC78 Yes. That's why I already said that this narrowed down definition of consciousness is also flawed, though it does sufficiently exclude most animals to a large extent other than humans. Although we don't really have studies dedicating towards all life forms, we do have one advantage over other animals. We enhance our survival rate with our own innovations. This capability is unique to humans alone from what we have observed so far. This ability to increase our own survival via science does not need any biological evolution on our part. This same capability to think has also produced philosophy and ultimately religion.
Reminds me of scurrying rats clutching at minuscule straws
I may not matter a billion years from now, but I certainly do matter now.
I think you’ll matter now and forever friend!
The response to the second argument is that we are here on earth, living breathing and doing general human shenanigans. It really doesn’t matter how we got here the fact is that we’re here and we can’t really change that. We also know we have emotions and there are things that make us feel good and things that make us feel bad. So while our end may just be same nothing there was before we were born while we’re here we might as well do the things that make us feel good and not the things that make us or others feel bad.
Truth is a subject, it is not an object
You can talk about it, you cannot hold it
That's a good argument for objective morality. Where objective truth can apply to our classical sense of reality and some kind of platonic reality of the same thing, objective morality can only exist in the metaphysical sense, subjectively.
IMO main argument about morals is only about arrogance of Christians, trying to usurp the creation of morals to themselves. While in reality, morals are an outcome of the humanity forming societal constructs (as a sort of predecessor of laws) and existed long before Christianity came into being. They just did the same as with any and all ancient holidays - they took them and overwrote them, so it looks as if they´ve created the holidays.
Also, morals of individual social and ethnical groups don´t overlap, but differ.
And i absolutely hate, when somebody tries to imply, there are only 2 options and you can only pick ONE, when there are, in fact, many options to pick from. But to realize this, you need to be able to think outside of the box.
The teaching of human supremacy, coming out of religion, is the greatest BS, which keeps affecting humanity to this day. We are just 1 of many intelligent living species on this planet. All of them have their personalities, feelings, needs and wants. Just the constant need for survival keeps suppressing their wants. And this is just about the intelligent life as WE know it. There may be many more species, even the planets and starts can very well be alive and we will never be able to comprehend or understand them.
There is great humility in understanding of our place in the vast universe. And i think that´s how the humility should be used - not to submit to the will of others, who demand us to behave in certain ways, because "god ordered that" (and in fact, THEY are ordering it and are only hiding behind the "god" ).
While external website to evaluate the trustworthiness of news can be useful, it can also be misused in the future to spread propaganda. I´d rather learn, how to fight confirmation bias and make my own opinions, than just build trust to some website, because it´s convenient.
Conveniency makes people lazy.
I´m not trying to devalue someone´s work, i´m just pointing out, that as long, as it´s a service made by humans, it can be misused without the user base realizing it.
i do have to wonder for objective morality why the first premise is even true. say there are objective morals. There is also an objective speed of light and objective laws of physics and chemistry that as far as we know are constant throughout the universe. So, what if objective morals are just some aspect of nature, that there are some philosophic laws out there? there's no reason there has to be a god dictating what those values are. One might claim that they're arbitrary if its just a part of nature but so too would it be from god, completely arbitrary
while i am not a Moral Realist, you are correct. if we somehow were able to determine that actual Objective Moral Laws exist external to thinking agents, that would be nowhere near sufficient to demonstrate that a god made them, rather than their existing independently like physical laws.
Christianity itself is based in fear. I would give none of them any credibility on that alone. I would have zero respect for any God doing that first sin punishment thing. That is simply ridiculous.
Uff, I do not feel like you can say that this alone represents Christianity. Arguing about the "punishment thing", I think it is hard to compare the consequences of the original sin to a punishment. Garden Eden may be seen as an Ideal World. Humans by taking action on their own are not acting "ideally" or "perfectly" anymore and in consequence cannot exist in an Ideal World.
Talking about fear, I do not think that being exiled out of Garden Even does inflict any fear to you. Looking from your current position Garden Even represents hope and encouragement to act "good" since that is described to be mans way to reenter Garden Even. I believe it is understandable for every other world view that if everyone acts "good", then this world can be described as "ideal". The idea of punishment for "bad" behaviour exists in every world view since it most times simply describes failing to act "goodly" / to make the world more "ideal". (Concepts like Hell maybe based on fear, but as you may know Christianity is not based around "Heaven" or "Hell" anymore - neither does its scripture. Core concept of the Bible is that humanity trying to get back into Garden Eden.)
@@aseraphyss Genesis is framed on the template of the monomyth and is a derivative of the Hero's Journey also found in Hinduism, Greek Myth, Buddhism, Taoism, etc. And hey, wouldn't you know it, Roman myth too. It's not a stretch to see seeking the holy grail or the kingdom of heaven within are on that template too. First historical references from Gilgamesh and the Babylonian creation story, The Enuma Elish. Christianity is far down stream and simply has new analogs to carry it. I seek the template. Not non-demonstrable supernatural.
@@danielpaulson8838 Well, there are many templates in every religion and culture. I interpreted: "Christianity itself is based in fear.", as reducing Christianity to one template alone and I do not think this fits a divers and multilayered debate as the one of Christianity itself.
@@danielpaulson8838 I do not understand what you mean by: "Not non-demonstrable supernatural." Are stories themself not prone to be non-demonstrable supernatural? What is the correlation between the template of the monomyth and fear alone? A Hero's journey includes motivation, reflection and hard work as well.
@@aseraphyss Christianity has both. It's on the template and then it tells you to believe or you will suffer an eternity.... I know the religion very well.
One thing I've never heard talked about is 'What did God do before he invented the universe?' He must have been bored out of his mind. I wonder how long he sat there with nothing to do. What gave him the idea?
I never understand why Religious people have to think we are special. Why do we have to be special? Why can't we just be? I remember arguing with a coworking about that, he kept asking if we meant nothing if there was no god, and I kept asking why we had to mean anything to live our lives. We are who we are, and we do not need any meaning for it to be true. I was an unplanned child, but that does not mean I don't exist, nor does my existence mean less because of it. Humans (and all life really) are an extraordinary game of probability, and we should fell special for that reason alone, not because some sky god made us.