I have faith in that the Bible was just a collection of stories, that has been manipulated over the years. I need no evidence to know that GOD does not exist.
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:17 🤔 God of the gaps objection claims that arguments for God's existence fail by relying on gaps in knowledge. 01:11 🌌 Atheists avoid supernatural explanations to explore unknown natural ones; some Christians share this approach. 03:56 🕊️ Atheists propose hypothetical scenarios as evidence for God, but they may still commit "God of the gaps" fallacy. 06:12 🔄 Some atheists dismiss classical arguments for God, yet present their own hypothetical evidence. 08:45 🤷♂️ Asking what would convince someone of God's existence relies on feelings more than rational discourse. 11:17 🔬 Science seeks natural explanations; proving God's existence requires philosophical reasoning. 13:48 🤝 Being convinced of something doesn't necessarily make it reasonable; focus on rational discourse. 15:12 🤔 Can a person rationally believe in God? Acknowledge philosophical arguments and varying perspectives. 18:40 📚 Encourage critical examination of arguments for and against God's existence to approach truth.
I would’ve watched a 20 minute video that was just cutting back and forth from Matt dillahunty agreeing with Alex O’Conner and then saying that Alex O’Conner is unreasonable
@@airplayrule what are you saying that Matt Dillahunty blocked Alex after making that remark in the debate? I wonder if it was because of that or something else that happened, that’s crazy.
I've spent years reading about and listening to a lot of folks discuss this issue - what would convince a non-theist that theism is likely true - and this has to be one of the finest resources in this context.
@@RichardDuncan-ju1xk God has done a lot more than buying you a beer (which God wouldn’t have to pay for)… God has sent his only begotten Son to offer you eternal life. You must accept the offer, however!
@@michaelderobertis5456, writes _"God has done a lot more than buying you a beer [...]"_ So you say, but since you can present no good evidence for your claim you sound disingenuous, ignorant, or deluded.
Ok, fair question. I am an atheist, and I have no idea what sort of evidence would definitively demonstrate the existence of any deity. You cited several examples, and I myself have contemplated the specific example of the stars being rearranged to spell words. I didn't know anybody else had ever proposed that lol. But my problem is, at several levels, I cannot find a means by which even that event would demonstrate deity, as that term is probably being used here. To me, the biggest single problem is defining deity. You can't do an experiment to find something you can't define. Let's take the rearranged stars problem. What eliminates the possibility that some very advanced species is projecting us as a hologram, and our entire universe could be rearranged at will? Theists raise this kind of superpower for their deity all the time. But what precludes the possibility of some natural being much greater than us, but much less than absolute deity, being able perform such an act? Or take the hologramming out of the equation. Now you have a being who simply has such a profound understanding of physics they know how to deploy enough controlled energy to rearrange stars as a form of communication? So what? That does NOT necessarily demonstrate deity per se. Which gets us back to our definition problem. Only by arbitrarily redefining deity to include some power X, and arbitrarily exclude all other beings from having said power X, can we formulate a test for the existence of this version of deity. The problem is this utterly collapses as a way to specifically demonstrate the Abrahamic deity. It was once widely believed that only the gods could generate lightning. So if you saw lightning, you were seeing evidence of deity. Thor, Zeus, whoever. Virtually any deity could be substituted into this definition. So the 'power' theory of defining deity can never provide closure. Raise somebody from the dead? Advanced biology perhaps, but not necessarily deity. Manufacture a local universe? Fantastic. Definitely a being to be feared. But deity? The absolute source of all reality? How do you get there? I don't think it can be done. Yes, I know about Kalam, and the modern variants of Kalam. I think they all have unfixable holes. So at the risk of sounding like I'm just throwing my hands up in despair, well, I am. I do not know of a single thing that could be done to show the existence of deity as that term is normally used by Abrahamic theists. Yahweh to me is nothing but a tribal war god subservient to a higher deity, who then got an unexpected promotion and now runs the whole show from a remote place that can't be detected by any of the reliable detection methods humans normally use to detect things. The other word for that being 'unfalsifiable.' 'Fictional' also works here. Now I understand that atheism can be misconstrued as 'nature of the gaps' or 'science of the gaps.' But as you stated early on, we have literally no choice but to start with what we know and work from there. What we know first and foremost is the data our brains receive from the outside world on physical paths of perception. We see color, we hear sound, we feel the weight of our own body as we struggle to learn how to deal with gravity. In that sense, 'nature' or 'science' are proxies for things we experience in our shared physical reality, things we can do experiments on. For example, I can convince my flat-earth friend (and I do have one) the earth is a globe using science, and based on nature. Could I convince him by simply asking him to imagine the world is a globe? Because he could also imagine the world was a cube, or a dodecahedron, etc. If he preferred to believe the world was not a globe, how would I cure the gap in his knowledge? I would have to resort to evidence we both share, evidence we could test. His imaginative remaking of the earth could be falsified. But how can I do that for an alleged entity for whom the only 'evidence' is a brain state? Where there is no impact on physical reality that can be tested? Where I have no ability to show whether this alleged being exists only in this person's imagination, versus existing in some unreachable state beyond the reach of physics? At the end of the day, it seems all too convenient that this alleged being has priests and imams and preachers all running around telling us what they think he thinks, but push come to shove, like the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz, the actual deity is always hiding in some unreachable place, always out of reach of our ability to verify. A sorry mess for us ordinary folk who never actually get to meet this deity, but a great way to make a living for the guys who run around pretending to represent him.
If you're to take the hypothesis of the Christian God, rather than the mere Abrahamic God, you wouldn't say that we never got to meet Him. And if the priesthood was simply a way to make money, why is it still practiced today, when there are infinitely better ways to make money and with most priests living very simple lives?
@@henryvdl3692 Um, yes I would say there's no sound evidence we ever got to meet the Christian god. All we actually have is an old book, written mainly by anonymous authors, none of whom we can confirm actually met the mythic Jesus figure about whom they wrote. It is 100% hearsay, and none of the hearsay exceptions apply. It's not a reliable story. We might give it some credence if it contained no supernatural elements. But it overflows with claims of miracles. I'm not against miracles. I just don't see anonymous, unverified storytelling as a valid way to show they happened in the real world. And even if you could show they all really happened, you still don't know it was the work of a 'god', or simply unexplained science. As for priests, etc., I will grant they aren't all Joel Olsteen money makers. So? Many of them are. I live next to a church like that. There is a ton of money in it for the right skill set. Still, there are others who aren't in it for the money. They just want to be close to a god. What's in it for them? Potentially many things. Power. Status. Personal peace of mind. The narcissistic belief that they understand reality better than the nonreligious. All of those things are very human reasons why priestcraft is still practised today. Humans naturally want all those things. They are not evidence for the alleged reality of an invisible superbeing, whether Jesus or Yahweh or Thor.
@@homealoneuniverse1221 I wasn't focusing on the evidence, although there is plenty of that (I would refer you to this video: th-cam.com/video/A0iDNLxmWVM/w-d-xo.html). My point was that it sounded as if you claimed that the Christian worldview says that we are "ordinary folk who never actually get to meet this deity". No reasonable Christian has ever said that, or anything close to that. Forgive me if I've misunderstood. Once again, power and status can be acquired through other, much less costly means, as can narcissistic satisfaction. I sincerely doubt that people would give up marriage, sex, and other privileges to gain something that can be found through easier methods. Those people are in the minority, which you would discover for yourself if you were to meet a decent number of priests. The vast majority are genuinely kind and generous, which are not traits of a narcissistic or greedy person. Also, I never said that the practice of priesthood is proof of God's existence. I am saying that it heavily implies a sincere belief in God and good intentions, rather than a desire for the alternatives you suggested.
@@henryvdl3692 Ok, first, I do not intend to generalize on motives of clerics of any denomination. There are also Buddhists, Rabbis, Baptist preachers whom I know have chosen near poverty because they think they are doing good. So I don't think we need to argue about that. My original point is perhaps best understood in an evolutionary context. In our early days we needed religion or something like it to survive a hostile environment. It's a social power amplifier. So even though you may get people with good intentions becoming religious leaders, you can also see how it would be attractive to another category of people. All professions attract some narcissists. But what better place to be a narcissist than a man who claims he speaks the very words of deity? And I have seen it enough in my long life to know it is NOT a coincidence. As for your first point, I do think you have misunderstood me. So to clarify, I totally get that the Christian worldview claims humanity has met deity in human form. So what? Scientology claims everybody is infested with ancient disembodied aliens and you have to pay their 'priests' a boatload of money to get rid of them. They are both equally nonsense, until and unless a sound evidentiary case can be made to support the claim. Which is why I responded to the above video in the first place. Claims, by themselves, don't mean anything. But a claim of deity is even worse, because it is probably impossible to support, due to the difficulty formulating a theory of evidence that would work in that special case. I hope that clears things up. Peace.
I would recommend trying to understand what theists mean by God because that would clear up a lot of your misunderstandings and problems. I think a lot of atheists tend to have a narrow, simplistic view of the God of the Bible because he has been painted as a ‘supreme being’ that isn’t too dissimilar to pagan gods. This is not what most believers understand God to be. I recommend this video to start with: th-cam.com/video/1zMf_8hkCdc/w-d-xo.html Peace.
The "God of the gaps" argument has always been interesting to me and I sometimes find myself catching my reasoning favoring it. But, on the flipside, I find a notable amount of atheists, both big name atheists and your run-of-the-mill atheists, follow on what I consider the Atheist equivalent of the fallacy it's what I called the "Science of the gaps" fallacy; the notion that everything can be explained away in the realm of science and anything outside of the science is outlandish hogwash.
@@mugsofmirth8101 Yes, it's a faith claim, especially because it excludes the idea of a non-naturalistic answer. It would be much better if the claim was 'one day science may prove whether Gods exists'. That's a possibility, in my opinion, for God has created the universe and its laws according to a rational plan, the physical architecture of which is still largely unknown to us.
@@jdotoz The miracle isn't making the bread or the presence of priest. It is true that God often uses natural elements and transforms them into something new, but that's not what Brian claimed. Brian claimed there is ALWAYS a natural explanation for God's miracles. Aside from exceptional miracles, there is no natural evidence to show that the bread and wine become Jesus' body and blood. It's something we believe by faith. It truly is the body and blood of Jesus, but it retains the physical form of bread and wine. That's an example of a miracle that transcends the natural order and cannot be "seen" in the way he described.
Instead of trying to explain how atheism is wrong even though it makes no claims that it could be wrong about... how about you simply *present sufficient good evidence to justify belief in the existence of your god?*
Trent: What would convince you, atheist? Atheist: >suggests something< Trent: No, that's no good. There might be a natural explanation. Have you tried just believing?
Maybe, just maybe, what the Atheist suggested was unreasonable? And it says something about atheism if you can say is "suggests something" instead of an actual point.
@@3yearsbeatthem-jg4nc Then here's an actual point. Personally, I'd take Jesus' followers being able to perform miracles like , and greater than, those of Jesus himself. I'd be convinced if you could show me that whenever two or more of Jesus' followers get together, God gives them what they ask for. I'd say the very word of Christ seems a reasonable point to start from.
Trent mentions Dietric Bonhoeffer. I would urge anyone to read his book The Cost of Discipleship, an extraordinary read which shook me at a time when I was still an atheist.
As a Protestant convert to Catholicism I have read much by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His story is fascinating. It pleases me so much whenever I meet a Catholic who knows about Bonhoeffer!! Yay!
Hey Trent, we met at the CCv1 conference last year and I bought and really enjoyed your book Case for Catholicism. Really appreciate all the work you do in your ministry. I'm planning on getting the books you recommended at the end of this video, but was wondering if you have had any other request for an Ultimate Apologist Reading List part 2? I am always looking for book recommendations from leading catholic apologist such as yourself, and would love to get an update to the list you created a few years back. Anyway, keep up the great work and God bless!
@@Cogi00 What's your view on owning another person as your property? Is that moral or immoral? Assuming god exists, is it moral for god to punish a person for sins they did not commit? Assuming god exists, would it be moral for god to prevent someone from doing something and then punish the person for not doing what god kept them from doing? Assuming god exists, would it be moral for god to punish a person if that person had no way of knowing they were doing something wrong?
@@cnault32441) No, to me it's not. It's how you treat the person that decides if you're being immoral or not. 2) God punishes sinners, not the saints 3) yes 4) I had an understanding of right and wrong at 5 years old so i can't speak for everyone BUT if they truly did not know wrong from right ( haven't met that person yet) i suppose it would be immoral wouldnt it?
@@Cogi00 So your response to my 4 questions asking you for your opinion is: 1) owning a person as your property ( in other words, slavery) is OK 2) I said nothing about saints, you didn't answer the question that was asked 3) whatever god does is OK with you, god can treat people as his toys to do with as he pleases ( so much for free will) 4) if they truly did not know wrong from right ( haven't met that person yet) i suppose it would be immoral wouldnt it? So you are saying it would be immoral for god to punish a person if that person didn't know they were doing something wrong? Yes or no?
I’m Catholic and some of the worst arguments I have heard regarding God’s existence is that they know God exists because “I feel it in my heart.” On the other hand, I can’t articulate well but I see atheists using fallacies in their arguments against God all the time, someone mentioned the “science hasn’t explained that yet but it will” which is a faith claim, which they appear to be against.
atheism is a modern belief system based on the confrontation with the outdated Christian belief system. Modern science is no different what religion was in the MIddle Ages.
@@celestethisandthat8887what about seeing Jesus appear to you. He has appeared to many. You do not receive because you don’t ask. And when you ask but don’t receive. It because you asked wrongly
Regarding reasonableness and convincing and the difference between them etc. I think a lot of what Trent is saying here is the practical application of the realization that human beings, left to their own nature, are not truly rational creatures. What I mean by this is as follows... We have the capacity for reason. We have the power of Intellect. Just like we have the capacity of physical strength and the power to run. However, if a person does not train strength, or train running, they will never be really strong and never be able to run really fast or really long distances. Nature, left to it's own devices in a fallen world does not develop, it devolves. This is just as true in the realm of reason and intellect as it is in the realm of athletics. In order for man to truly be rational, he must be trained properly. That has always been a rare thing. However, contrary to what most people think, it has actually become MORE rare in the modern world, not less rare. I have personally never met a single person who was rigorously trained intellectually to root out contradiction in their own views, and to scrutinize their own views for logical consistency as much as they do the views of others. The few people I have met who do this, developed the skill on their own, usually as a result of reading old books. If a person is not trained in this way of thinking, then it is virtually impossible to convince them of anything by purely logical / rational argument. This is because what they believe is ultimately not based on logic to begin with. It is based on emotion, sentiment, and other accidents of life. To these people logic is only ever a tool to justify what they believe and to attack opposing beliefs. It is not a means of discovering truth or knowledge. If you are perfectly content to believe contradictory ideas, no amount of logic can ever convince you not to believe those contradictory ideas. The simple reality is that despite man being the "rational animal" the vast majority of human beings are not governed primarily by reason, and never will be. This idea is an illusion that the modern world has bought into, largely to our detriment. This is also why the "age of reason" and the political and social outgrowths of it are currently proving themselves to be such massive and complete failures.
People do not favor teaching critical thinking for different reasons. But the result is that it does not figure in the teaching plans to teach to think correctly from childhood. One can guess what would be the benefits of having a population unable to discern intentional or false information in public or private discourse.
I have always found it fascinating that imaginary numbers, which do not exist in the material realm are yet a necessary ingredient in modern physics for explaining the natural universe.
Exactly! St. Thomas Aquinas' wisdom does shine in his statement, "To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible." As St. John Henry Newman rightly recognizes in his concepts of real assent and informal inference, belief in God and Christianity comes from the accumulation of probabilities. To those insufficiently attentive to the instincts of natural religiosity there is nothing really to say. You need ears to hear.
@Roger Mills I would say faith in a personal God. Claims about God are distinct from philosophical arguments for God. One can be affected by feelings as Trent points out and then there’s logical discourse.
This comment is 2 years old but maybe you will respond anyways: So what if people do not have those instincts for religiosity? What if they are born blind so to speak, and just can't see? How is that fair or a free choice?
@@ThePaull3d Some distinctions would need to be made. The natural human instinct is to be religious, but if that instinct is hampered or has become twisted in some way due to things beyond a person’s control such as an illness that affects their mental state then Catholicism allows room for that. God doesn’t hold people responsible for things that are impossible for them to do, that would be cruel. He isn’t bound by anything though and can present Himself in really particular ways. If one is willfully blind or sees the truth of faith and refuses to submit to it, then that’s a different matter.
People often use the "atheism of the Gaps" If we have difficulty explaining something, the person will say that it is definitely caused by something that exists in a purely non-theistic world.
@@mugsofmirth8101 Skepticism is not taking anything for granted, much less what seems obviously contradictory. The need to use critical thinking to build each concept and let reality be the final judge of certainties.
Putting the “God of the Gaps” shoe on the other foot was insightful. In spite of their frequent attacks on believers, it’s crucial to approach atheists with respect and love. Well done as always, Trent!🙏
He really doesn’t put the GotG on the other foot. More importantly, it’s plain religious narcissism that you think you’re the victim here. Christians incessantly argue atheists can’t be moral and will suffer for eternity in a frying pan if they don’t gullibly believe the way they do.
@@brunorhagalcus6132 If a Christian says that atheists can't be moral, then I would say they are wrong. But, instead, atheism has no basis on how something is objectively good vs evil (which many will acknowledge there's good and evil, just are unwilling to say it is objectively, even when they act like it is). This is how the argument goes; 1. It takes a mind to create morals 2. If there's no mind prior to the human mind, then the human mind creates right and wrong 3. Morals would vary depending on which human mind you are talking to (relativism) 4. Instead objective morals exist 5. Therefore God exists. And on the topic of eternity, the only truly definite thing we know about hell is that it will be separation from God. In other words, hell is God's greatest compliment to human dignity/free will.
@@tylerjones3514 objective morality exists because god exists and god exists because objective morality exists. That’s circular and none of it demonstrates a god which means you’re “acting like your moral code is objective”. Also, which of the 50,000 morally-conflicting Christian denominations holds the objective knowledge? And which person within that denomination holds it? It must conveniently be you, right? You can’t demonstrate a god exists. You can’t demonstrate hell exists.
@@brunorhagalcus6132 That's not how I put it, is it? But go ahead and twist my words so you don't have to think too hard on it. But I wouldn't say it is confined only to me having the objective moral code. Instead, I'm convinced that each and every person has a conscience that ties them into moral absolutes. Though I should clarify, there are some relative morals as well, but I would say when you see justice being violated, you don't sit back and say, "That person has a different set of morals, therefore they're right for themself." Instead, you become agitated because you're conscience informs you that real evil has been perpetrated. Now, how do I know there's going to be a heaven and a hell? Only because I consider Jesus Christ to be trustworthy, so when he talks about a heaven and a hell, I take keen interest.
Trent has taught me so much on how to defend our faith!!! 💙💪 I love his non aggressive approach. I've tried it and most protestants don't know how to react to kindness lol BUT I have actually been able to talk to aggressive Protestants and through kindness we have been able to have civil dialogue 😊 God bless! 🙏❤️💙❤️🙏✝️🛐
@@pcm7315 lol it's not easy because they are almost always in defense mode and ready to throw scripture at you. So I understand that going in and I try to get them to just have a normal person to person conversation with me. Then I ask questions and they 9/10 just have misconceptions or just uninformed about the Catholic faith.
your first mistake is being religious. god is not religious, there is no one true religion that explains god better than the other, there is no one religion that god prefers over the other. based on these facts, you should make a logical conclusion.
This is my favorite video you’ve put out, Trent. Thank you! I do have one follow up question - what is a characteristic that would distinguish an entity from being in the category “natural” vs. the category “supernatural”? You (rightly) accuse atheists of demanding a natural token of evidence to prove a supernatural entity. But I’m not sure that I’ve clearly heard a definition of “supernatural” in the first place. It seems like we can only grasp the supernatural through philosophy and abstract thinking. And for the record, I am Catholic 🙂 just one with questions.
@@hhstark8663 If the multiverse theory were true, any other universe would be outside the time and space of *our* universe, but contain its own space-time. Would it be natural or supernatural? What about the multiverse matrix they spawn from? Would that be natural or supernatural?
@@hhstark8663 thanks, but this is not totally satisfying because you’ve only explained it in the negative, i.e. what a supernatural being is NOT (not in time and space). The atheist would say, we can only know things that are in time and space, to say otherwise is nonsensical
@@thomasnoone5426 'Outside or beyond time and space' is not negative. My unconscious mind can know things that are beyond time and space. I not know it now but I can be conscious of it in the future. PROOF: some of my past dreams which became reality
As an atheist, before showing me evidence of any god, you would need to provide me with an explanation of how exactly I am supposed to believe in something beyond space and time when I define existence as being within space and within time at some point. There was no time before the universe, so how can something have existed before the universe in order to create it? You could just say that it is a simple truth that God is beyond spacetime, but that's not the problem. I find the mere idea of something existing beyond spacetime to be inherently nonsensical, incoherent, and inconceivable.
So then did time always exist, as an infinite point, or was it necessary inevitability? If these two positions are false or illogical, then we come to a third choice: a first mover. One that created time that has no origin and exists by necessity itself. Its also not really that hard to comprehend. We can think of abstract ideas that have no bounds in the physical universe, such as numbers. Yes, there's the description we give of it that are human construct, but it doesn't matter if it is called 'I,' 'one' or 'uno,' its numerical value is still '1,' and our universe has been found to follow many rules according to numerical values, such as the Universal constants. However, these numbers themselves hold no tie to spacetime themselves, and thus are something not bound to time, space and perception.
@@luxither7354 Time has always existed in the sense that it has existed for all time, but time has not existed for an infinite amount of time. Why can’t time exist by necessity itself? I can imagine whatever I want, but I can’t conceive of something existing outside of time and space in a way that is logically consistent with what I consider the concept of “existence” to mean. It may be that our definition of existence is one that we have created as humans, but that doesn’t contradict the fact that I can’t see how one could believe in something “existing” when it doesn’t fit our definition of existence without employing some form of doublethink. Therefore, for me to understand how something can exist without conforming to our definition of existence, someone would have to give me a new definition of existence that both permits God to exist and also remains consistent with our empirical observations of the universe. If such a definition exists, please provide it to me.
@@legospaceskeleton "I find it the mere idea of something existing beyond spacetime to be inherently nonsensical, incoherent, and inconceivable." Where is the contradiction? What makes it nonsensical? "Why can’t time exist by necessity itself?" If you claim that the past is not infinite, and also claim time exists without a first mover and is by necessity, then you've found yourself in a metaphysical absurdity. How can time be caused if there was no time to cause it if atheism is true and there is no mind to move it? Who's "us"? What do you mean by "our definition"? What you're saying is not clear. Existence is the the ontological property of being. Empirical observations are not the only way to understanding truths about reality, and to assume so would be begging the question for naturalism, and would also be self defeating.
@@DarkArcticTV Thanks for the reply. I’m currently on holiday and so will be busy for the next few days, but I’ll try to get back to you about all this at some point soon.
"I'll believe a supernatural being exits if you can prove it is a regular part of the natural world that we observe." That isn't what I would consider to be a "Perfect" explanation because it leaves you open to limitless claims with regards to the "Supernatural". Examples include quite literally any and everything, ie. Ghosts, Santa, Tooth-fairy, Elves, Witches, Flying Spaghetti Monsters, the list goes on.
@@jb31969 You are correct. It isn't perfect. My mistake. Of course, there is no perfect argument, even in science as Popper's principle of falsifiability demonstrates. The very fabric of reality can't be known 100% for certain; there is no absolute proof we are not in the Matrix, so again, great point about it not being a perfect argument. But it is a damn good one. If the job of science is to explain natural phenomenon, then it is wholly unsuited to explaining supernatural phenomenon. We must then use other tools of determining which supernatural phenomenon are credible, and which aren't. And we have those tools; logic, reason, and metaphysics. For example, logic dictates that if we went to the top of Mt Olympus, we won't find giant divine beings arguing. But logic also dictates that there must be an external cause to the universe, a first mover if you will. Reason would argue that the flying spaghetti monster is a made up because we can separate it into three constituent parts and identify where each of the three came from, whereas we have no idea where the concepts of spirit, divinity, or other metaphysical terms comes from. We can not divide these phenomenon into constituent parts and explain how humans put it together, which suggests at some point they must have been experienced as a distinct phenomenon.
It's pretty silly to think that atheists wouldn't concede on the existence of the supernatural when there is an expectation for how the natural world works and how the supernatural would change it as described by holy books. If Jesus himself should up in the modern world and started preaching and healing the sick with his touch I wouldn't say that this is just some "natural undiscovered power", since this is something that would be consistent with what the Bible describes. But none if that matters because all you need to disprove the popular concepts of benevolent gods is the myth of free will paired with sin and hell, and the problem of natural evil/disasters.
I'm a Nonduality Theist. This is a great episode and this channel is IMO one of the better, well thought through channels that covers this type of subject matter.
I don’t think that anyone who subscribes to dogmatic presuppositions and tries to wrap every thought around those presuppositions can be intellectually honest.
@@alecfoster5542 because anything accepted as dogma must either reject or assimilate new information into its mold. If one rejects new data that is factually correct, then they are choosing to believe in untruth. If, on the other hand, one assimilates new data into itself, then the truth of the data is made serviceable to the held dogmas, which requires a certain amount of dissembling. At best, the dogmatist finds data that simply fits easily into their model; at worst, they fabricate reasons for contradictory ideas to fit within their dogma. That is the business of theology: dissembling and interpreting the data of reality to feed their particular dogmatisms. To be fair, I think if we’re all honest, none of us is as intelligent as we want to think we are, let alone intellectually honest.
@@wesley3300 I appreciate what you are saying, but I think Trent would readily admit the limitations of dogma and suppositions. In other words, he can't ultimately "prove" everything. That's why they call it "Faith" after all. In this sense, I would not label him as intellectually dishonest.
re: God of the gaps. Apparently the Catholic priest Lemaitre, who found the solution of GR where everything expanded from a singularity, advised the Pope not to make the "big bang theory" (not was it was called at the time) a dogma of the church. Because Lemaitre, a scientist as well as a priest, knew science advances, and the theory may turn out to be wrong or incomplete.
I'm an atheist. The best argument for the existence of God is the fine tuning argument. It really is quite convincing. If one of the couple dozen or so physical constants were different by a mind-boggling minuscule amount that we wouldn't be here. My biggest problem with it is the water puddle story from Douglas Adams. The environment around the water puddle isn't "fine tuned" to give the water puddle its shape. It's the other way around, the water puddle conforms to its environment, that's what gives it its shape. Similarly, perhaps if there were different physical constants there wouldn't be life or the universe as we know it, but maybe there would be a different kind of universe with a different kind of life that arose out of those different physical constants. Also, we don't even have a full grasp on the physical laws of our own universe, so talking about what a different universe would be like with different physical laws and constants is speculative at best. Edit: I forgot to include that the multiverse is also a candidate explanation for this. If there are an infinite number of universes then there are bound to be some which support life, and that's one we find ourselves in. The multiverse also seems like a more likely explanation than God because it's a logical step that's been made and verified by science multiple times. We discovered there are other continents with people than just the ones we live on. We discovered there are more planets than just Earth. We discovered that the stars in the sky are the same as the Sun. We discovered there are billions of galaxies besides the Milky Way. Now we have the universe, and it doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility at all that there may be a multiverse with many, if not an infinite number of universes. (End edit.) Another edit: We also don't know how much variation the physical constants could possibly have. Yes, if they were different by a mind-boggling minuscule amount then our universe as we know it wouldn't exist and we wouldn't be here. However, it might be the case that the possible variation is even smaller than that, or it might even be zero, in which case the argument fails. (That would bring up a different set of questions and arguments, but the fine-tuning argument would fail. End edit.) I do really want God to be real. I'd like to be a Christian. The community, meaning, love, having a higher purpose, etc., is very appealing. I don't like it that nihilism, in my view, is correct. One day I'll be gone, everyone I love will be gone, humanity will be gone, the Earth, Sun, and galaxy will be gone, and all that'll exist for infinity is cold, empty space devoid of absolutely anything at all. However, my feelings, what I want, what is appealing, what I don't like, etc., has exactly zero bearing on what is true. I can't just make myself believe something, I have to be convinced that it's true. Unfortunately, I believe the truth is that we live in an ultimately meaningless universe.
Let me put it to you this way. Would a multiverse disprove God, or would it further prove His omnipotence and infinity? I say, it would prove His omnipotence and infinity, as now we have several multiverses, and these multiverses still operate under the same rules as our universe, with some variation that is still not drastic enough to break what we know. However, what we have to keep in mind is that science proving God really only scratches the surface of Who God is. How do I mean? Science proves God as Creator, that much we know, but if that's all He did, then, Who IS God? We see that God is more than a Creator. For instance, God created Humans in His Image, and we share three attributes, with one being well known, the other being less known, and the other completely unknown. The Body is what we know through biology. The Body breathes, it digests, it feels, tastes, smells, looks, hears, and balances. The Soul is the least known, and all we really have to show for the Soul is emotions and complex/abstract thought. The conscious, if you will. The Spirit is the attribute we do not know anything about, even Christians are on the fence of what the Spirit is, and many people say it doesn't exist. But to get to the meat of Who God is, He is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. God also loves you. It may sound empty, but it really isn't. God created you, and God loves you. He loves you so much, He created you one of a kind, and created you to not be a robot. God loves you so much, He waits for you with open arms. God loves you so much, that He gave His only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die, not for the white man, or the Jew, but for the sinner. The sinner is you, and the sinner is me. The sinner is the Buddhist and the Muslim, the atheist and the pagan, the apostate and the believer. God died for ALL of us, for every single one of us, and resurrected so that whoever believes and puts faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, surrenders to Him, and requests for His love, they will not die, but receive an eternal life, free of pain, of sickness, of suffering, of tears and of sin, forever. Name one other god whose love is so great, they did all of that for their creation. Exactly, there is no pagan god that has done that. Those false gods want your good works or animal/human sacrifices. But what does God want from you? Your faith. For it is grace through faith that saves a sinner for an eternity.
I've always found it strange that the debate centers around "proving the supernatural". I see the problem in a different way than most from what discussions i've seen, which is that, a lot of theists say you can't prove the supernatural because it's outside of nature, and therefore out of the reach of science. But, if the "supernatural" was ever confirmed, wouldn't it just become a part of the natural? To me it seems like supernatural is just a way to describe yet unexplained phenomena. Once it's explained, it's not supernatural anymore. If we ever found out god was the explanation, he would just be natural at that point, right?
I'd say no, as God operates outside of the rules of nature. Even were He scientifically proven (which I do not think can happen due to the nature of science), He would still not fit into natural phenomena, as the rules and natures of the natural world would not affect Him, rather, he would be seen as that which originates the natural world in itself, being above it, supernatural.
@@DerPinguim First off, you're assuming we understand the rules of nature, which we probably don't fully. You're saying he doesn't fit into "natural phenomena", but that's our current understanding of natural phenomena, which could change. Second, science is the pursuit of knowledge, not the study of natural phenomena, so if god is proved in ANY way, it's still scientific. He obviously just hasn't been proven in any way yet
Excellent presentation? The question is: "What would prove god exists?" The question is moot until the person asking that question has presented a clear definition for the god. To be a clear definition for the god for the god, it cannot contain: - vague attributes - logical fallacies - unproven claims An example for an unproven claim would be to say god exists in a realm outside our universe without first proving the existence of a realm outside our universe. When a theist does not clearly define god and asks the question "What would prove god exists?", the theist is saying I won't tell you what god is, but can you tell me what would prove god exists?
This video's "one question atheists can't answer" is: "What would prove god exists?" The question is moot until the person asking that question has presented a clear definition for the god. To be a clear definition for the god for the god, it cannot contain: - vague attributes - logical fallacies - unproven claims An example for an unproven claim would be to say god exists in a realm outside our universe without first proving the existence of a realm outside our universe. When a theist does not clearly define god and asks the question "What would prove god exists?", the theist is saying I won't tell you what god is, but can you tell me what would prove god exists?
We have constantly, over the centuries, seen phenomenon that were originally given a supernatural explanation, replaced with a scientific and rational explanation. We have YET to see a scientific and rational explanation for a phenomenon replaced with a supernatural one.
I’m a bit late to this, but as a I’m currently an Atheist I’m happy to address your question. I think the fine tuning, kalam and other philosophical arguments are not very good arguments for the Christian God. For most of these dilemmas a “I don’t know and nor do you” answer is the only honest answer. If you ask a physicist for example, what causes the BiG Bang, they might have hypotheses based on available information. But the answer to which hypothesis is correct is always “I don’t know”. And the hypotheses is Never God because there is no data to back that up. It seems quite arrogant to say it was definitely God that created the observable universe. That is why Atheists sometimes argue that if you do postulate it is God who created the observable universe, that you are committing the “God of the gaps” fallacy. And this kind of reasoning applies to most philosophical arguments for God. So unfortunately for me I guess, I would only be convinced there is a God, if there is some scientific proof presented. Something you say is impossible because God is Supernatural. If God is real though, he can enter the natural world as he did in the form of Jesus. So I might be convinced if I ever met Jesus version 2. But I can’t be sure. To be fair though, I’m a scientist and I do trust the scientific process generally. If I was born in a different culture or place or time, I’d probably believe in God. People are just easily convinced generally about something being true if the majority of a population believe it to be true. I’ve just been lucky to grow up in a country where most people don’t tend to be brought up (indoctrinated) to follow a particular belief.
I would love to go through a scientific exercise with you. But we would need some ground rules. We must adhere to the scientific method, any conclusion we come to must be based on available evidence, and any evidence or conclusion may not be undermined by the promise of future and contradictory evidence which is not yet known. That is pretty standard practice for the process of scientific inquiry, can we agree on this?
It may have been worthwhile to note that Dan Barker's previous career was as an ordained pastor. His book, "Godless" recounts his leaving the ministry and Christianity. Well worth reading.
Remember that time God performed numerous miracles in direct sight of Pharaoh but because his desire for worldly power was so great each time it only hardened his heart to God more?
According to a story in the bible. Of course, the bible also says that Pharaoh was about to release the Israelites, but God harnded his heart..I guess the Angel of Death has pretyt big cancellation fees, or God just gets off on seeing kids get killed?
@@richardgregory3684 Ya Pharaoh was going to release the Israelites in the midst of the latter plagues, but when each plague ended Pharaoh changed his mind again to keep them captive. It’s not complicated. As soon as he wasn’t being directly impacted by God’s power his heart was hardened and he resisted God again. This wasn’t God removing Pharaoh’s free will, it was God knowing and telling Moses that pharaoh would resist Him. God doesn’t change His mind and God doesn’t remove people’s free will, if you think so please find me any other examples. Also, you can’t say ‘according to a story in the Bible’ to dismiss me and then cite the exact same story from the Bible to make your case. How does that work? Lol
@@IllogicalMachine Exodus 9:12 "And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh" Exodus 10:1 "And the LORD said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh: for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might shew these my signs before him:" Exodus 10:20 "But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go." So the bible story makes it absolutely clear beyond doubt, that *GOD* hardens Pharaoh's heart. That is clearly interfering in free will. Moreover, the story openly admits that God did this for the purpose of causing Pharaoh to continue to refuse to release the Israelites so that God could then "show his signs". In other words, God was deterined to inflict the plagues on Egypt and when it looked like Pharaoh was about to submit, God interfered to ensure he had an excuse to carrying on punishing Pharaoh for disobedience (which God caused). And of course, punishing the Egyptians too, even though they were innocent and had no say in the matter. Even we mere humans have outlawed "mass retribution", that is, punishing a whole population directly for the actions of a minority of it. _Also, you can’t say ‘according to a story in the Bible’ to dismiss me and then cite the exact same story from the Bible to make your case. How does that work? Lol_ It works because it exposes the way the bible presents self-contradictions, and exposes the lie that "God doesn;t interfere in free will", which is the excuse Christians invariably quote when asked why God doesn;t stop a maniac from shooting a dozen kids with a machine gun. Of course the whole thing is nonsense and this is but one example of Christianity's internal inconsistency.
God of the gaps or Naturalism of the gaps arguments do seem to suffer from the same weakness. But I find that the conclusions of these arguments are usually different. "Science can't explain X, but it might one day". If the argument were typically "God doesn't explain X, but it's possible He might ..." then I wouldn't be nearly so sceptical.
Anytime a prominent speaker makes a video titled "atheists can't answer this question" some fedora tipper will make a response video trying to debunk it. So brace yourselves boys for the incoming cringe...
It's an assertion that provokes a response. If you believe strongly that God exists and someone says "This single fact disproves God" I'm sure that you, or one of the many many evangelists out there would try to rise to the challenge. In fact, you would be right to. The answer to his question really is easy or hard, depending on the particular "God" you're talking about. The God of the Bible as described in the bible is at best unfalsifiable and thus unprovable, or at worse proven false a hundred thousand times over. If you define God to be all of the Omnis then he's proven false by contradiction. If you define him as unknowable then he's definitionally not provable. Whatever Theist you are has to be addressed before the question can be answered, which seems impossible enough for you guys to figure out. For some versions of God there are no proofs possible. After all what would convince you that 2+2=7 for all values of 2? I doubt anything could, or indeed should convince you. Why should we have to come up with a way to prove something we've demonstrated to be false? How or why would it be reasonable to demand I come up with a way for 2+2=7 for all values of 2 just to give you something to prove?
Are you ignoring the hyper-cringe of titleling a video "One question atheists can't answer". There has never been a video so titled that didn't contain cringingly bad arguments.
My take away from this is that the question "What would convince an atheist that God exists?" simply has no value. If it can't be answered to your satisfaction, stop asking it. A better question might be "What question exists that once had a fully satisfactory naturalistic answer, has had that that answer improved by replacing it with a supernatural one?"
As an atheist, I can tell you that I'd have no idea what proof would suffice. But then again, the people who do believe in god, have no proof themselves. Other than personal anecdotal experience, or some arbitrary supernatural explanation. Moses authored the Torah, according to the bible. So that means he wrote Genesis. He wasn't even there! So how can anyone really claim that it's the real creation story? According to your own doctrine, if Moses was a prince of Egypt, then wouldn't it be a fair assertion that he understood the geographic layout of Egypt and all surrounding areas. Have any of you ever traced a path through the desert where he allegedly roamed for 40 years? Why wouldn't he have just headed north to the Mediterranean coast line, and then followed it to the east and north until he got to the area that would later be known as Judah? And for a God who has one of his commandments being, "Thou shalt not kill", he sure doesn't seem to mind ordering the Israelites to murder lots of people. As well as taking slaves and women. But we can forget about all that doctrine because god decided to stop being a sadist and instead came down to Earth to be a masochist and experience all that pain himself. And since he has done that and allowed us to use him as a scapegoat, he's just all hugs and smiles now. And we can forget about that old, jealous, and wrathful god. And you all claim that this literature is proof of god's existence. If God were real, and loved us all as you claim he does, then I'm sure he would make himself known without any worry that his exhibition would be rejected. Especially when to deny him, would certainly be worse than any other thing. No matter how good of a person you were. And no matter how selfless you were. And he would torture you for all eternity. This is your guy? He sounds a little narcissistic. And honestly, all the temper tantrums he's thrown, have a slight hint of borderline personality disorder about them. And as far as your new question goes, there is no good argument for the existence of god at all. Until you can actually show that your argument is based on reality. Because until then, all you're doing is arguing for the existence of a superstition. And religious texts are nothing more than superstitions written down. Your question itself is actually the very reason atheists exist in the first place. Because no argument has ever been presented. There is no proof because there is no evidence. I would have no idea what kind of evidence would even suffice. Because neither of us have ever seen any. And it's ridiculous to bring up the "something out of nothing" ideology. Because the idea itself that "nothing" is actually a plausible explanation for existence to somehow "spring out of", makes no sense at all. Why does there have to be nothing to explain everything. And technically, both of their absolute values are the same. And that is why math itself is so important. Because the only experience any person can ever have is subjective. But math is the closest thing human beings can make use of to get close to some type of objective understanding. But now I've got a question for you. Why would god leave you with the bible, a flawed doctrine that is full of contradictions? If he truly wants us all to believe in him and know that he's real. Then why has he allowed such a flawed and perverse piece of literature to be at the center of his doctrine?
so true. we love trent! you should definitely become catholic man… check out his book the case for catholicism if you’re interested. very helpful to my conversion
Hi there, atheist here. I greatly enjoyed the video and appreciate the even handed approach. I must admit that I have to hang my hat on the first two arguments that you provided. I've said before that testable, repeatable evidence that proves a deity to the exclusion of other explanations, though I do admit that I don't know what that would be. Philosophically speaking, I could personally see a possibility of a sort of guiding hand in the development of life. Something like nurturing spirits, albeit rather impersonal ones, giving different species little nudges here and there. Now, I could not believe that this would point towards a "Capital G" God, or even an intelligent one, and I also know that this is just an argument from improbability when one boils it down, but the question was for what I thought was best. I really don't find any of them very compelling, to be honest, since one can't argue the sky into being a different color nor can you simply argue a god into existence, and both would almost certainly require a leap in logic (let alone faith) to get to a God. Thank you again for the video and thank you for the invitation to share my thoughts.
I’m Catholic, we take it on faith and using logic, we can reason that God exists based on observations in nature. Forgive me for my ignorance but wouldn’t it be more accurate for an atheist to say that they are agnostic?
@@beatlecristian an atheist can be gnostic (knowing) or agnostic (lacking knowledge) that a particular god exists. For example, if your god is the sun, that it brings life, etc. I would be a gnostic theist. I have evidence the sun exists and that plants use the sun for photosynthesis. But if the sun required praise or performed miracles, you would have to present evidence for those claims. I am a gnostic atheist when it comes to Chiron. I know there could not possibly be a half human half horse animal, so I know for sure Chiron is not a god. I am an agnostic atheist when it comes to a Christian god because it could be possible, but I haven't see sufficient evidence to say that the Christian god exists. What evidence would prove the Christian god exists? Something better than has been offered up in the past 1600 years because everything that has been presented so far, does not prove the existence of the Christian god.
So, would you accept another explanation: >We can't explain X. An entity, which is not a god, explains X. Let's call this entity a poof-o-orb, a blob, that has magical powers. It has no mind, no will, it's not a being nor a spirit. The only thing is does is to explain X. Would you accept poof-o-orb to exist?> You're welcome.
As an atheist i dont even understand why there are "proofs" of God's existence. Is this that God wants from us? To logically prove he exists? Why? Why do i even need to do this? Furthermore, if there is PROOF, then there is no more faith. If God's existence would be proven, it wouldn't be a matter of faith anymore, but of intelligence to understand it.
Going to be honest, I came into this video thinking it was just going to be another low effort video that shows ignorance on the subject. Was pleasantly surprised to see otherwise.
Nice video. This reminds me of something I thought of a while ago where a person experiences a miraculous event it's undeniable in every aspect of the event that it was from outside source. This is absolutely no way that you can convince anybody else around you that this truly was miraculous. I like to sum it up by saying miracles aren't transferable. I really like these videos keep up the good work and may God bless you and your family 👉✝✝✝
@@RustyWalker Correct. I know of a person who, having grown up in a predominantly Christian society, became religious because of 'out of body' experience, which he attributed to God. Which god? The Christian one. He went into the ministry. He was the pastor of my church-school when I was a teenager. When he had the out-of-body experience, nothing supernatural was happening at all. He was a drummer in a rock band. We understand the neurology of that experience very well, and it's repeatable -- no god required. We know what parts of the brain shut down under what conditions, we know why the brain has trouble locating itself as a result. But Average Joe doesn't know. It's a gap in his / her knowledge, and experiences that aren't understood get labelled supernatural.
@@stephengalanisThe problem Happens when no neurology can explain the events or conclude what happened :/ This is why personal testimony of some skeptical atheists is rather profound. Its impossible for them of being highly Skeptic of Jesus and yet by all means despite their skepticism said that they couldn't deny what they felt and experienced.
Part of the problem with miracles is understanding probability. What is the difference between an improbable event and a miracle. Take a recovery from illness that any given person would have to live for a million years to experience. If you encountered it you might well call it a miracle. However the human population live for 8 billion years every year, so 1 in a million events occur 8000 times a year, or about once 65 minutes. In populations with low scientific literacy and a embedded religious culture it's very easy to see how credible tales of miracles arise, which in turn give credence to fantastical tales of miracles.
Here is my answer to the question: God knows exactly what would be reasonable, undeniable, rational, 100% true evidence of his existence that would convince anyone and everyone. We may not know of whatever this evidence would be, but God would know since he is all-knowing. Therefore, all he has to do to turn everyone into Christians would be to reveal that evidence.
Wow this argument just blew me away. I'm absolutely stunned. We all either live by faith or we dont. I have heard it but this is the first time I have ever understood it logically. You just changed this Pastors life
You must be New to the free will you have… you can choose to seek God… It literally says if you seek you shall find… not if you read half heartedly you shall find or if you read narrow mindedly you shall find…. Let your guard down and just read the gospels and re evaluate God Bless,
@@Mojojojo335 if an all-knowing god with infinite knowledge exists that means he knows every single thought and action that i, or anyone else makes then it would be impossible for me to act with a will that wasn’t already predetermined. if i have free will god isn’t all-knowing.
@@Mojojojo335 i would have no way of acting freely of the script. all my choices would be determined by him beforehand. if i have no choice in the matter, then how can i have free will?
To answer your question in a philosophical way: 18:21 ( ( Imagine God is like a videogame developer ) ) A videogame developer created a digital 'universe' within our universe. The 'universe' the developer made, also has 'characters' . Just like humans in our universe. And just like humans; The characters are able to learn from- and about their 'universe'. But, the videogame developer had a goal in mind for the characters : "Reach a certain 'score' to advance to the next level." To get a score they need to complete objectives; By walking through levels, breaking down barriers, overcoming obstacles, helping a friend, helping a stranger, etc. But the characters can also lose points; By not completing levels, stealing, demolishing property, murder, adultery, swearing, etc. Now, there's one troublesome part : THE CLOCK !!! - If a character doesn't get a score high enough to "advance to the next level" in time, the character gets to 'Restart Game' and start with a second "life". - If your score is high enough : You get to meet your 'Developer'. ( "Escape Reincarnation" - is the name of the game 😂 ) I guess this is very relatable. Farfetched; yet plausible. Concluding : It's not weird to think we are in a created universe : just like the characters in the game.
Your example is fine, and I also think that people who believe we "live in a simulation" might as well be saying God exists. The Developer is God. Philosophically I can't see the distinction, except for one thing: the simulation folks run the risk of infinite regress... unless they arrive at the Grand Order Developer at some point.
So it's not weird to think that we live in a videogame because you came up with some hypothetical game and arbitrary rules and objectives that can vaguely resemble morals. This is just brainrot
1. If God revealed himself to every culture, as the same being, by the same name, I'd definitely be more inclined to believe. 2. If God didn't hate the very sin that he himself created, and didn't want to punish man for all eternity for being what he made us... 3. If omnipotent God wasn't always surprised aghast and angered by actions that his omnipotence should give him prior knowledge of... 4. If God didn't have some divine plan, and yet somehow take requests against that plan in the form of prayer... [if the plan is perfect, then why should my prayers be answered? If it's his will then won't it be done anyway? And if it'll be done anyway, then why pray for it to be done? That's not answering prayers, that just doing what he was already going to do.] 5. If God could just make perfect beings, (since he loves perfection so much) instead of manufacturing chaos... [why is he such a poor engineer? Heaven and the angels fell apart with Lucifer; Eden and humanity fell apart with Eve, a serpent, & knowledge. Why is he so incompetent? Isn't he supposed to be omnipotent? How do we keep getting the drop on him? 😆 6. If the Bible wasn't so rife with blaring contradictions [there is none righteous, no not one; but Job was called righteous, isn't that one?] 😂 hilarious impossibilities *[ANYONE WHO THINKS THAT THE STARS WILL FALL FROM THE SKY CLEARLY DOESN'T KNOW WHAT STARS ARE!]* and historical inaccuracies... 7 . If God wasn't an evil, jealous, angry, spiteful, murderous, conceited, racist, massaganist, man-child... *Why would my name be in the book of life? Doesn't God know everything? W.T.H. doe he need a book for? Is God forgetful? Why does he need a throne, does he fatigue? What do I need a mansion for if all I'm going to do in heaven is praise HIM for eternity? Why are the streets made of gold, and pearls and rubies and emeralds? Seriously, how materialistic is God?* I could go on and on...
Well Trent the problem is that "God" is not a well defined thing. I'm a naturalist so in answering your question I'd need clarity what God is. If it's a supernatural or non-natural phenomenon then there simply isn't anything that could prove god's existence, and that is an answer. If the Omni-God is what you're talking about, to me that model of God amounts to a contradiction, so by definition this would be something that can't exist and again there isn't anything that can prove that to exist.
It is not necessary for every biblical account of the "risen Jesus" to be a hallucination. All it would take is one person to hallucinate a brief apparition of Jesus, or one case of mistaken identity, or one lady to stumble across the wrong tomb and find it empty (or make the mistake of thinking there *was* a tomb, given crucified victims were typically left out to rot). Any *one* of those events or any combination could set easily off the rumor mill such that, decades later, there would be dozens of sensational stories on the oral record for the gospel writers to pick up and write down. This does not make it reasonable to explain away every possible experience as a hallucination. If I believed every story in the Gospels was absolutely experienced *exactly as described* by someone, then it I would doubt they were hallucinated. The descriptions aren't all of things that are common to hallucinate, and it'd be strange for that many to all hallucinate independently and at different times. Peter, however, hallucinating a 30-minute conversation with Jesus, perhaps absolving him of the guilt he felt for denying his teacher and running away, is exactly the kind of thing that can happen and exactly the kind of thing that would set the rumor mill going.
You saw him teleport the card into the orange, there's no other explanation, yet you deny it happened, you say it's the unknown natural. So let me ask: what would convince you that he magically teleported the card? And it can't be repeating and investigating the magic trick, because that would be science (10:10), and science can't prove magic (10:28). It seems your materialism might be unfalsifiable :s
People who think that reality tv shows are "real“ have much more serious problems than just a broken epistemology.😂 Everything you see in those shows is fake, all of the people you see are actors who only pretend to be amazed by the mysterious magic trick. I saw enough "behind the scenes“ videos that made me question if there are any shows left that aren’t 100% fake especially those highly produced magician shows.
Well the miracle would not be a hallucination if you can videotape it. Basically the argument here is that since it's not very clear what would convince an atheist then you don't need to prove anything. So convenient.
Even better if it’s repeatable. The goal is to get god on par with hard science. God should realistically be sending Jesus to talk to people. It would be pretty hard to deny a man living for 2000+ years.
@Roger Mills Since the dawn of human existence there's always been deadly viral infections. Yet all of a sudden Branch Covidians feel empowered to infringe on the rights of every human being by imposing draconian and unconstitutional mandates which the Supreme Court just rejected on a federal level.
There's many reasons as to why people become atheists and even die-hard atheists, at that. Some of those main reasons are pride and arrogance, as I recognize myself in these aspects, during the 7-year period when I had lost my faith, or reject it, more appropriately speaking. It wasn't until I let go of my pride (which is an on-going battle) and let myself be humbled by Christ, that I was able to ascertain him to be the living truth and way. Atheism is a blindness and in most cases, it's a willfull blindness, veiled in pride and arrogance. You could write several books on the topic and still have material left... In the end, it is inevitable that one turns to Scripture and see the eternal wisdom of God: "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" - Romans 1:22
@@lovinit45454 How come? It'd be more helpful if you gave an example and more of an explanation as to why you think that. As I see it, I am speaking frankly as somebody who was an anti-theist, basically. It is the unfiltered truth of what it entails to be a self-professed atheist. Identifying as agnostic is reasonable, but being an atheist is simply ludicruous because it is a senseless position to hold if it were true i;e: Theism and theists are the saving grace for atheists to identify as atheists, in the first place.
@@csongorarpad4670 "I don't have a cogent answer so I'll just say you're wrong," - the person who has gotten over his arrogance and totally has an answer for everything.
I think that very few people are convinced by arguments for or against the existence of God,. Because they evaluate the arguments from the position they already have. I think that the road from atheism to theism goes through the practices of theism. For example prayer, worship, taking part in the life of a theistic community. Wich means that the road is chosen.
I'm an atheist and I can answer the question 'What would prove to me that god exists?'.. If he showed himself, like he is reported to have done in the bible, but to a large group of people and there was video evidence of it. That would prove to me that this ridiculous, narcissistic control-freak of a being exists. And then I'd have a lot of questions for him to answer.
Here's some evidence: Please watch and share my four brief videos, which present examples of scientific facts contained in the Bible. These facts could not have been known to the writers thousands of years ago without divine knowledge given to then by God. And scientists today agree with these scientific facts!
@@RichardWright-hk5oe Richard: I hope you will at least watch my first video, which contains examples of scientific facts contained in the Bible. In the meantime, I will provide you with one example of a major scientific fact in the Bible: The writers of the Books of the Bible lived thousands of years ago and could not have known that the scientific facts they wrote down were true without divine inspiration given to them by Jesus Christ / The God of the Bible. Example: Moses was an isolated sheepherder who knew absolutely nothing about the geologic history of the Earth, which occurred over billions of years by time as we experience it here on Earth. Yet, Moses wrote correctly in Genesis that during the Earth’s development there was a time when it was totally covered with water and then the dry land appeared in one place (the supercontinent that existed before tectonic plate movement began, of course). Scientists today agree that the Earth was once covered with water and that land initially appeared in one place, just as the Bible says. Here are a few links to scientific sites that agree with the Bible that the Earth was at one time a water world: astronomy.com/news/2020/03/ancient-earth-may-have-been-a-water-world-without-any-dry-land news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/04/harvard-scientists-determine-early-earth-may-have-been-a-water-world/ www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/ancient-earth-was-water-world www.livescience.com/waterworld-earth.html You asked for evidence. Let me know if you want more. Thanks, and take care.
@@RichardWright-hk5oe Richard: I hope you will at least watch my first video, which contains examples of scientific facts contained in the Bible. In the meantime, I will provide you with one example of a major scientific fact in the Bible: The writers of the Books of the Bible lived thousands of years ago and could not have known that the scientific facts they wrote down were true without divine inspiration given to them by Jesus Christ / The God of the Bible. Example: Moses was an isolated sheepherder who knew absolutely nothing about the geologic history of the Earth, which occurred over billions of years by time as we experience it here on Earth. Yet, Moses wrote correctly in Genesis that during the Earth’s development there was a time when it was totally covered with water and then the dry land appeared in one place (the supercontinent that existed before tectonic plate movement began, of course). Scientists today agree that the Earth was once covered with water and that land initially appeared in one place, just as the Bible says. Here are a few links to scientific sites that agree with the Bible that the Earth was at one time a water world: astronomy.com/news/2020/03/ancient-earth-may-have-been-a-water-world-without-any-dry-land news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/04/harvard-scientists-determine-early-earth-may-have-been-a-water-world/ www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/ancient-earth-was-water-world www.livescience.com/waterworld-earth.html You asked for evidence. Let me know if you want more. Thanks, and take care.
Great video. Totally agree about the importance of engaging in philosophical argumentation and reflection when it comes to debating God's existence. For those interested in some relevant Atheistic works that look at the issue of competing explanations, I'd recommend J.L. Mackie's _The Miracle of Theism_ , Gregory Dawes's _Theism and Explanation_ and Jason Beyer's _A Comparison of Judeo-Christian Theism and Philosophical Naturalism as Explanatory Worldviews_
Do you have thoughts on the “limb from nothing vs universe from nothing?” I suppose that doesn’t matter so much as you engage in philosophical discussions that Barker just hand waved away
Real Atheology: Important to remember that philosophy of religion is an invention of the fertile, human imagination. As such, it has much in common with the stories told by our comparatively primitive ancestors. The "stories" of philosophy of religion are more complex, more sophisticated, sure, but they are still a kind of story. The philosophy of religion is essentially making stuff up about stuff that's made up. I say this because philosophy of religion has become the refuge of the thinking theist. They have somehow persuaded themselves that philosophical arguments can bring "Gods" into existence in the real world, which is absurd, of course.
@@karlazeen Yes, it fits and I often lump them together, especially when I am told that I am theologically ignorant, which happens from time to time. Like philosophy of religion, theology - the study of "Gods" - does not bring "Gods" into existence in the real world.
{note: I know this is a long comment, but if you see this, please take the time to read it because I have something to say here that I often want to, and don't get the chance.} Okay, I'm only half way through the video, but as an atheist I agree with everything you are saying. However, you could convince me of the existence of the God(s) from a religion, but the general idea of a "god" is so broad that it would be impossible to prove. Now I have a few reasons as to why I say this. Let me start with some background: everything that we experience is from our own brain, right? We cannot know anything to be true out of our own consciousness. This means that nothing could exist, or there could be an incredible light show going on and we'd have no idea, because our entire experience as living is from our own consciousness - think about Descartes' I think, therefore I am. If you disagree with this, then what I am going to say will mostly not follow logically. If you have any objections to this paragraph, then please reply. I believe that it is the most crucial part of my argument, and also the most... controversial. Now, let's say you want to prove to me that the Christian God (replace it with any other pantheon, and it is still the same argument) exists. If you could show me predictions from the Bible that matched up with reality enough, then I would believe it. That is how science works. Nothing in science is "proven", it is merely (I say merely, but for it to be corroborated beyond a reasonable doubt it has to be pretty damn unlikely to not be true) corroborated beyond a reasonable doubt. Of course, I could be hallucinating, but I could be hallucinating everything else so it is no different to me believing that I am typing on my computer, or that I have a physical form, or dimensions of space even exist. However, let's say you want to prove that a god exists. What is a god? Let's say you define it as "a superhuman being or spirit... [that has] power over nature". That is a definition from the Oxford dictionary. If superhuman means powers that cannot be explained by science, then we are gods to tribal people; we can do things that their science cannot explain. But maybe superhuman means that it can do something that science cannot explain. But what is science? Making predictions and observations "the systematic study of the... world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained". This means that nothing can be "beyond science", since science is the study of reality itself. So maybe a god is simply the creator of our universe. If this god is non-interventionist, then it makes no difference at all, since believing in them or not has literally no consequences, and so it is useless to consider such a god as they may as well not exist. If this god is interventionist, then we'd want to know in what way. But as soon as we know in what way they are interventionist, they fall into the category of god explained in my third paragraph (Now, let's say you want to prove to me that the Christian God...) and follow the same logic. You cannot prove the idea of a god, but you can prove that a specific one does exist. Well, as much as anything else exists. Those are my current thoughts on the matter. I hope my way of writing was clear enough. I try to be as objective as possible, but I am just another atheistic liberal, so what would I know lol (a fucking joke, by the way)
Please everyone, the answer is in Romans 1:17-31. Apart from those who are just angry with God, there are those who won't tell us about the evil deeds and lifestyles they justify. These folks hate God because He is inconvenient to them and God has given them over to their reprobate mind becsuse they love their deeds. They are vain. They knew God once. But they rejected Him. I was one of these. Mind you, if they are young God has not yet lost His patience with them. He had mercy on me to get much older... I too have done things when young and cried out to God to rescue me from these evil addictions. Yet, I cannot deny the justice of God all the time, and His rewarding my trust. He doesn't need to show me His face. God bless us all.
Very well articulated and presented video on this issue. Especially the part were you said most atheists keep assuming theistic arguments are from an unknown phenomenon to God. That frustrates me a lot. They consistently fail to understand that classical theistic arguments proceed from known facts about nature to God using deductive reasoning and philosophy.
I don't see that as happening. People engage with the arguments they receive. There are plenty of philophers and philosophically minded atheists who address the classical arguments. But the average theist doesn't present a classical argument. So the average atheist isn't necessarily going to address them.
As an atheist, yes, expecting miracles is committing the god of the gaps fallacy. And no, nothing I can imagine would convince me of god. Something might convince me that the being in the Bible described as God exists (if you show it to me, for example), but I'm not convinced it is God, just as I'm not convinced that Q from Star Trek is God. Super powerful entity ≠ God. Similarly, a kind, loving, fair and moral god wouldn't have to exist for me to worship it. I would be totally unconcerned by its lack of existence.
Atheism makes no "claim" of anything. It's up to theist's to prove their claims. How silly would be for a court of law to require the defendant to prove his innocence? Ridiculous!
Honestly, I also don’t know what it would take to convince me of supernatural things, because at the end of the day the ideas just don’t make sense to me and I find plenty to object to in all the arguments I've ever seen. I don’t think we can demonstrate minds are immaterial things whatever that would even mean. We also can’t demonstrate existence of minds other than our own and even then it is questionable to talk about demonstration when knowing our minds exists is an immediate individual state of affairs rather than any meaningful reasoning. I’m also not aware of any moral truths existing. Morals seem just stability points connected to our evolutionary history and they are associated with a kind of homeostasis with our environment. Very much a material state of affairs. Numbers then again I don’t think exist as such, rather they are just names given by humans to particular aspects of the process by which information is handled by this universe. I believe in expectation values, strategies I discover and by which I can expect to be able to play the game better than otherwise. I’m not sure I believe in anything else at the end of the day really. I find it unlikely the universe came from nothing or came at all in any meaningful way, more likely it’s just misguided human taste for causes and reasons when it comes to fundamental existence which may not have anything like that at all. We know of only one state of affairs evolving into another state of affairs in this cosmos of ours. Generalising from that doesn't really get you very far and perhaps there is nowhere to get to.
"I find it unlikely the universe came from nothing or came at all in any meaningful way, more likely it’s just misguided human taste for causes and reasons... we know of only one state of affairs evolving to another state of affairs." Well, that is Aristotelian Formal Causation then, which is fundamental to understanding causation. Explanations and causes aren't just "human tastes". There's a reason why when a set of particles (such as 2 Hydrogen atoms and 1 Oxygen atom) form, that every single time they form a water molecule. Never do they wind up being something different, it literally never changes, nor evolves. They are true to "form" of their essence, every single time. It literally never changes. The very essence of what they are causes them to be a water molecule every time, never a petroleum molecule or aluminum oxide. Acorns always wind up forming into something that is within the realm of their essence (even if it's badly mutilated), it will be some sort of plant, never a rock or a bird. This is formal causation. Cause and effect, and explanations, are absolutely provable, and absolute fundamental metaphysical reality. They are as provable as 1+1=2, every single time, and if true, God exists. Denial of cause and effect, and that things have explanations, to me is like denying 1+1=2. This sort of argument sounds like Sean Carroll or someone.
@@thegreatcornholio7255 Generally speaking there is essentially nothing to prove in "1+1=2". Conceptually it's an arbitrary definition made by humans for practical reasons and physically it refers to trivial state of affairs. "Cause and effect, and explanations, are absolutely provable, and absolute fundamental metaphysical reality." As exemplified by Münchhausen trilemma, nothing is absolutely provable or at the very least humans don't currently have any grasp of such matters. If you think otherwise, I'm confident you have failed to understand the essentials of logic. "There's a reason why when a set of particles (such as 2 Hydrogen atoms and 1 Oxygen atom) form, that every single time they form a water molecule." To be exact H2 and O atoms don't necessarily form water molecule and are quite happy to exist among themselves as separate atoms in large quantities as well. They form water when set on fire, but they don't need to burn otherwise. I'd also like to stress that in nature there are a great many often unlikely ways things can evolve and in a large set of things many of these unlikely ways happen all the time. Even particles aren't any unambiguous things when looking at the scale of quantum fields. However, that's probably not the point you tried to get across so I'll respect the principle of charity and ignore this particular issue. Never the less getting back to your point, how would you in general know there is a reason for the arbitrary state of affairs in nature? What would that reason be, how would it work, what would be the reason for that reason? Generally speaking following back the route of how nature evolves from one state of affairs to another does not seem to allow humans to reach any meaningful and unambiguous conclusion to such questions so it seems humans know nothing of such things. Humans simply observe the current state of affairs and how they evolve. Physics is only descriptive, it makes simplifications to build models based on those observations and then people use those models to make pragmatic predictions to play the game of expectation values so to speak. These explanations are fundamentally only useful fiction since we can't verify their correspondence to absolute truth. At no point do we reach a thing like first cause for anything. We only see evolution of state. Luckily that doesn't matter, we can still play the game, but it really does seem to be all we know and do. Observation is not a proof, it can act as a demonstration that may or may not support expected usefulness of a particular model. Only in mathematics and logic are things proven in a more strict sense and even then the proofs only tell that from assumptions a certain set of conclusions follow, but the assumption are still uncertain and ultimately the provability of formal axiomatic theories is quite limited as demonstrated by Gödel's incompleteness theorems and of course in the end in more general sense due to observations like Münchhausen trilemma.
@@derre98 Well, I guess I'll respond, but the point is that when you said that humans want to assign causes, and explanations to things; it is for a very good reason. It's because everything has causes and explanations. That's what things like science are about and just assume (unless you're into modern scientism, atheist stuff, then you rely on the principle right up until the point it disproves your atheist world view and then dump it). "speaking there is essentially nothing to prove in "1+1=2"." -In mathematics in logic, we have what are called "mathematical proofs" and "logical proofs". " Conceptually it's an arbitrary definition made by humans for practical reasons and physically it refers to trivial state of affairs. " -This means you are in the nominalist view of philosophy, which most mathemticians and the greatest mathematical physicists on earth like Penrose, Vilenkin and others, disagree. However, I agree with you, but either way, descriptive or real, never do mathematical laws change, and never is 1+1=8 for example. " If you think otherwise, I'm confident you have failed to understand the essentials of logic. " -I don't thinks so. "To be exact H2 and O atoms don't necessarily form water molecule and are quite happy to exist among themselves as separate atoms in large quantities as well. " -Yes, that's correct, and Aristotle, and every aristotilean, thomist and whomever came after, explains that in detail. These are called "potentials" and for some reason every substance must adhere to a set of potentials. H20 combined has the potential for water, and maybe some other potentials by themselves (as you exaplaiend). But the point is, when H2 and O are combined, they MUST be the actualization of some potential, according to their form. Threre are zero times, when a H20 combine in large enough numbers, and it forms into a goat, or into oil. That fact never evolves, it never changes. It forms into water, or one of it's other potentials, every single time. This is a formal cause. All the science stuff you explained about H and O, I'll take your word for it, but that's simply not important. The point is, this is true of everything that exists that can change, it has a set of potentials, and it when it changes, it will always actualize into one of those potentials. This is Formal Cause. "I'd also like to stress that in nature there are a great many often unlikely ways things can evolve and in a large set of things many of these unlikely ways happen all the time." -Never outside of their potentials. It could be that it changes to *something else* that has new potentials, but it, in and of itself, will never change to something that is beyond the potentials of its essence. "What would that reason be, how would it work, what would be the reason for that reason? Generally speaking following back the route of how nature evolves from one state of affairs to another does not seem to allow humans to reach any meaningful and unambiguous conclusion to such questions so it seems humans know nothing of such things. Humans simply observe the current state of affairs and how they evolve." -Ok... Well, that's empericism. I'm not a strict Empericist, but that's how humans know most things. And there's other epistemological modes. How we form things like "proofs" in mathematics. We can prove them conceptually, then we can see that they are applicable to real events in nature. This is what Kant referred to as "synthetic" reasoning. We can take logical constructs, and verify them in the material world, as though immaterial abstract reality has some magical connection to the material world, and the material world must obey them. And in science "theories", and the conclusions are often very unambiguous, and very clear. In the real world, we have many experiential reasons to have beliefs (like I'm sitting in a chair right now typing and that I exist). All of these seem very reliable, and there are very good reasons to believe that they are true. There's certainly more reasons to believe that they are true, than the negation which just seems to be pure skepticism, intellectual nihilism. "Physics is only descriptive, it makes simplifications to build models based on those observations and then people use those models to make pragmatic predictions to play the game of expectation values so to speak. " -See Nominalism above. I agree, but this does nothign to disprove, or bring doubt to cause and effect, and explanations (aka The Principle of Sufficient Reason). "These explanations are fundamentally only useful fiction since we can't verify their correspondence to absolute truth. At no point do we reach a thing like first cause for anything." -"fiction"? That's a huge assertion, which you certainly haven't given any reasons to support. Well, I think people who believe to the contrary give *very* good reasons. These include people like Aristotle, St Aquinas, Gottfried Leibniz, Kurt Godel, and they explain in detail, why you are wrong about that; and I feel they are extremely convincing. If you feel there is no "first cause" of anything, you need to bgive reasons you believe some of the assertions you have been making (with no supporting reasons so far, just assertion, just as people like Carroll who I mentioned and other scientism atheists). Understanding cause and effect (including formal cause) IS the purpose of the scientific method, and other areas of epistemology. If you think it doesn't exist, or it's "fiction" or at some point it just quits being true, then I think you need to be able to explain when it stops being true, and how you came to know that. I'm just being honest here, usually when I hear people make these sort of grand assertions, about cause and effect being "fiction", or that they've upended all of human reason, so they can now support a meaningless universe that "just exists, without explanation", it's always just that, a grand assertion, with very few reasons given. Can you give a single example of something that changes, and scientists think there's no reason as to why, or where they've decided there'll be no explanation? I challenge you to find *anything*, apart from mutli-verses, "quantum soup universes" or something else that helps them support their atheism? A SINGLE thing that isn't needed to support their atheism, that they say "there need not be an explanation for that, it's a 'fiction' that everything must have some cause or explanation". As William Lane Craig points out, this is a gross example of Special Pleading. Anyhow, thanks for sharing your points. Most of my questions are rehetorical, because I may not have time to keep reading responding (bc of my work requirements).
@@thegreatcornholio7255 "The point is, this is true of everything that exists that can change, it has a set of potentials, and it when it changes, it will always actualize into one of those potentials." It seems circular or down right void of meaning to say "things do what we observe them to do" or at least that's what I hear you saying there. Yes, obviously, that's just using words to say nothing. We all know this, it's a trivial tautology. "And in science "theories", and the conclusions are often very unambiguous, and very clear." As a physicist (my day job) I would disagree in a sense that all theories are just approximate models built upon limited statistics, a set of useful fiction waiting for a better theory to arrive upon better statistics. The word fiction is of course there to highlight the uncertainty associated with all existing models, theories and knowledge, not to say that nothing matters, in fact a good theory has predictive power and predictive power is valuable to humans and thus matters to them in the time they live. "There's certainly more reasons to believe that they are true, than the negation which just seems to be pure skepticism, intellectual nihilism." Certainly, most models built upon daily observations can be tested and gambled with and this is normal practice everyone does. Same does not apply to first causes, gods and similar concepts and postulates which essential cannot be tested and only exist in a category of unnecessary ones let alone if they are nonsensical in some ways. "...this does nothign to disprove, or bring doubt to cause and effect" Principle of sufficient reason is in my opinion very bad example as we have no experience of any first causes whatsoever. Therefore we have nothing established to disprove. We only have experience of things evolving from one states of affairs into another states of affairs by "differential rules or differential equations" which we have built as approximate statistical models based on observations. "If you feel there is no "first cause" of anything, you need to bgive reasons" In the previous I gave many such reasons. I do not believe in the first cause because there is no reason to postulate such a thing, there exist no statistics and no observations that would benefit from that postulate. Postulating a first cause would explain and predict nothing, quite the opposite. All causes we know of are nothing more than continuous state evolution, rocks rolling down a potentially infinite hill of which we only know of a small finite slice. There is in general no other reason required not to believe something other than the fact that a postulate proposed by someone has not been justified sufficiently. "Understanding cause and effect (including formal cause) IS the purpose of the scientific method" Scientific method has no purpose, it's just a name given to a method we apply to build useful models, it is the best method that accomplishes this and is followed by humans doing science, humans like me. There can be nothing better than science, because whatever is known and whatever works best is science. Theories are constantly updated to match the latest observations. We build rockets that fly to the moon. Success of a theory is ultimately confirmed by success of our devices and the game itself. "so they can now support a meaningless universe that "just exists, without explanation" I don't care about such things. I do not know if the universe just exists, if the universe has meaning or what is fundamentally true of nature of existence, but what I do know is that I'm not aware of any rational way a "first cause" could be logically consistent or that universe could have a meaning. Meaning is a subjective human concept to the best of my understanding. The only thing about the universe that is obvious is that it exists, it has a state and that human (at least my consciousness) experiences temporal evolution of state which has included being able to build useful models. Human experience of state evolution may be correlated in a complex manner to the state of the universe and thus it is very difficult to say anything unambiguous about matters such as origin of the universe. "Can you give a single example of something that changes, and scientists think there's no reason as to why, or where they've decided there'll be no explanation?" I might as well ask you to give me a single example of something that changes and we know why this change occurs. As explained earlier, we don't know why change ultimately occurs, we only know how it occurs, so pretty much everything we know of falls into the category you ask. I'm not asserting there is no explanation, there might be or there might no be. Although depends also strongly on what you mean be explanation. Scientific explanation typically means a description, a model, a how, something like a map or a painting corresponding to observations. However, a painting is not a cause, its at best an image of a state. I'm simply saying humans don't know of any why, we only know of how. We know of how things approximately evolve from one state to another because of observations and statistics, not why they evolve, how time evolution started or how the first state came to be if there even was a first state or if it even came to be rather than some other "state of affairs" being the case. We simply lack the understanding and/or imagination for such matters and the alternatives proposed by people to these questions are simply nonsensical. It's better to acknowledge what doesn't make sense and what we don't know than to pretend otherwise. I'm not an authority believer so many of the names you mention don't concern me, but in general William Lane Craig and his arguments don't really get respect from me. I've hear many of them and addressed them in various contexts. I've also personally debated a PhD theologian once, that too didn't impress me very much. The others you mention may get some respect from me depending on the context, but not in ever context, some of them more than others of course, Gödel and Carroll more than others. Ideas matter, truth matters, people and especially their beliefs not so much except beliefs in a sense that people should strive to hold as many true beliefs as possible and as few false beliefs as possible. Everyone may have good ideas as well as bad ones, and they do. I think for myself rather than accepting what others have done. If I arrive at the same conclusion as someone famous, cool, if not, that's cool too.
@@derre98 So, it sounds like you think that the fact that H20, when combined, will *never* be oil, and a seed when planted , if it changes, it will either be a plant, or it'll rot, those are its only potentials, and there are zero other options, 100% of the time is a "circular tautology" lol. Ok, fair enough. I should just leave it at that then. It has nothing whatsoever to do with us observing them do something "therefore that's what they do". It's that something is true, and therefore we will observe it, 100% of the time". If you have some principle that is true, then you'd expect that everything adheres to the principle. If you think it is possible for H20, given enough time, may or may not form into oil, then you reject the metaphysical principle. If H20 combines and forms any other things than water, it is because these are one of its potentials, and depending on the the other things acting on it, will actualize one of those potentials. ALL of science just takes Aristotelian causation for granted, and is utterly underpinned by it, and most scientists are utterly oblivious one way or the other, and don't remotely understand it. The only time people try to make exceptions to it is when they're trying to maintain their atheism "cuz science", and then they dump every single principle necessary that underpins their science, and then they start appealing to "patterns" and things without causes, and things they think doesn't require causes, but are completely oblivious to the fact that they are just giving examples of other kinds of Aristotelian causation. If you think that H20 will NEVER form into oil, then you accept the principle, but you can still try to argue against it til you're blue in the face. Rather you agree with the principle or not, the people who do have VERY good reasons as to why they do. If you want to study the subject further to better understand it, that seems like it'd be a good option, if not, that's ok too, it's easier to be an atheist that way. And really, I will just leave it at that.
I can't speak for other Atheists, but from my perception as an Atheist, I believe that in one form or another, in a natural state of being, the universe always existed ... which completely does away with the concept that the universe was created, or that humans suffer because of sin. To an Atheist, fearing the existence of a god, would be equivalent to fearing the existence of Santa Claus. From the book … The Church and Mental Health, Published 1953. Phillips Brooks saw the difference between morality based upon anxiety and that based upon faith. “Why is it,” a friend once asked Brooks, “that some of these men who call themselves atheists, seem to lead such moral lives?” “They have to,” replied Brooks. “They have no God to forgive them if they don’t.”
I agree that the answers to the question "what would prove that God exists?" are often bad but half the problem here is that the question is nonsense. A lawyer doesn't get in front of a jury and ask what would convince them that the defendant is guilty or innocent. They lay out the actual evidence, not ponder made-up evidence the jury wishes existed. "What would convince you" just forces a person to invent some otherworldly scenario that can't be anything but God, but it doesn't matter because those things aren't happening anyway. The only sensible answer to "what would convince you?" is "whaddya got?"
Bad analogy. Juries are carefully selected to minimise any possibility of bias for or against the defendant. The vast majority of atheists have a massive emotional bias against the idea of God. Don't believe me? Talk to some.
@wishingwell12345 You missed the point. The point is that the question is basically "right now, on the spot, come up with a fictional scenario that would prove the supernatural." It's completely useless. Whether a juror is biaser or not doesn't matter, all you're doing is testing whether they're able to come up with a cool scenario on the spot. Some will be good at answering the question and some will be bad. But there is no point whatsoever to the question to begin with.
I think that this bias exists because they ultimately do not want Him to exist. They do not simply lack belief, that would make them agnostic. They actively do not want Him to exist, likely because they sense that they would have to change their lives and order them around Him.
They don't want any god to exist, yet for some reason they focus almost exclusively on trying to debunk the Christian conception of God rather than the myriad other deities of polytheism or the Pantheistic God. Occasionally, they make an argument against Allah but that's the only exception I've seen and it's quite rare since most New Atheists are very politically correct and don't want to appear "Islamophobic" by criticizing the Muslim faith.
I came to this conclusion also, when i was Half arsing my beliefs. Even if jesus came back and sat on the throne, militant atheists would reject him, because it would mean they'd have to accept and obey Christian morality.
For me, if a being appears to the entire world (shown in all the news therefore not a hallucination), and demonstrates that it has all the claimed attributes of god (omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence) then I would believe that it exists. If Thor of Marvel appeared to the world, I would not believe still that he was the claimed god because Thor is neither omniscient nor omnipresent.
So your standard for belief was if everyone believed it and saw it, it’s real? I don’t know, that just sounds like the ad populism fallacy from people relying on the same God of the Gaps fallacious reasoning. :/
It's a stupid argument, "What would prove to you god exists?" First I'd ask "Which god?" Seeing a Viking tearing across the sky in a chariot with thunderbolts flying from his hammer might convince me that Thor exists.
Usually, when you are solving a problem, you solve the first question first "Is there a God?", If you are certain that there's a God then you go to the second problem "Which God is true?", You don't jump around each problem without solving the first objection like it's some kind of Gotcha.
You say that, but I’ve found that the typical atheist conception of God is the bearded man on the Sistine Chapel touching Adam’s finger; the so-called Ancient of Days. They will even refer to him mockingly as ‘sky daddy,’ which is a fascinating, but wholly accidental peek into how limited their conception of God is. They are projecting their conception onto others and saying “we must be talking about the same God, and you just happen to be wrong about that character’s existence.” Listen to Dawkins and tell me he isn’t talking about a bearded man in the sky. The typical atheist’s rightful sparring partner are fundamentalist Christians, because they are talking about the same entity.
An atheist here, "What would convince me of god?"... Well, two things would have to happen... 1. Theism would have to be represented in the universe in argumentation (every argument for god is not theistic in any way). The thing is is that theism is unnatural in that the only way one would come to know theism (or a specific god) is by example a talking burning bush, disembodied voice, voices/words in head, apparitions, scripture, prophets, divine dreams etc... etc... These things are all unnatural revelations, theism is NOT able to get itself out of that box as no natural revelations exist. Theism requires the unnatural to be known! If no natural revelation exist in that no theistic argumentation is present then theism cannot EVER be rational. For example, if I saw a talking burning bush, it would be impossible to deny what was happening in front of me, however, there would be NO WAY, under the laws of logic, that it would ever be rational or coherent understanding in belief or knowledge. It would then mean that god put me in an irrational position regarding rationality and coherence in logic, simply because the universe HE designed is not pro theistic in nature (that would be god's fault theism isnt rationally possible). Any time type of natural revelations at best would be deistic but not theistic. So theism would have to show itself to be naturally possible in the laws of logic in a universe were theism had natural revelations that are not deistic (since deism and theism are at odds). Apologist, even famous ones, like to use deistic argumentation to show theism yet deism is closer to atheism in every way (literally no difference between an agnostic deist and an agnostic atheist yet plenty of differences between an agnostic deist and an agnostic theist). 2. The second thing is that Theism would have to prevent presuppositions from being used in arguments for god for theism to be rational. Theism would also have to avoid arguments such as the beginning of the universe argument, or Fine Tuning, or the First Cause arguments since neither the theist or the atheist can correctly justify any stance regarding it. This is why presuppositions are the enemy of rationality. You cannot form a justification from presuppositions other wise it becomes a "god of the gaps" type of argument. Its why atheist correctly dont presuppose a godless universe, they dont have to in order to justify atheism. All they have to do is justify their non belief in order to justify atheism.
@@daviddeida That is false... confining reality into a concept of time and space is not a presupposition only available to atheist. The reason is because no one knows the nature of reality itself or the universe so neither the theist or the atheist is required to presuppose anything about its nature beyond what we know.... It isnt required for atheism to be justified. The only thing an atheist needs to justify in rationality and coherence is not being convinced a god exists. Theist like to presuppose that atheist must presuppose to justify atheism yet they fail to understand that that is bad philosophy and bad epistemology. Saying that atheist must presuppose the nature of the universe to justify atheism is no different than saying that theist must justify the nature of god... They cannot know the nature of god so any presupposition regarding Him would be irrational and unjustified. That is kind of the point about presupposing being used to justify a stance is bad philosophy 101.
@@daviddeida I will give you another example... When theist say that natural revelations of god exists such as the trees, the grass, the sunsets, and all of the earths beauty, show a natural revelation of god... that is wrong as it requires one to presuppose god as a prerequisite to that conclusion. It means that without that presupposing, the "beauty" of the earth does NOT show a natural revelation of god. It would then be in the eyes of the beholder. Its where presupposing leads to irrational/unjustified conclusions. The fact remains that the only way to know theism is by unnatural revelations such as a talking burning bush, disembodied voices, scripture, prophets, divine dreams etc...etc... There are no objectively defined natural revelations of god, only unnatural which is a problem because the grounding of theism in general is rooted in presuppositions that require one to presuppose a presupposition... that is horrible philosophy.
My own sister said Even if God came down from heaven on a cloud that she wouldn't believe!!?? I have learnt now to just pray for her as every time I mention God she gets really upset
I’ve had two atheists tell me, separately, during two different discussions, the only thing they can’t explain is from emotions come. They said it would be our emotions that would lead them to believe there is a God. It shows they are thinking, and they made a good point.
@@beatlecristian from what I understand agnostic is a subset of atheist, but then people have really varying definitions of atheist and agnostic. Always best to ask what definition they use I guess
@@Enaccul It's not exactly subset of atheists but generally it is more often brought up as such. Think of it this way., if we think of Santa Claus, your can't really prove or disprove his existence, therefore you are agnostic towards him but at the same time you don't have enough evidence that he exist and it sets you to default position of not believing in extraordinary claims, therefore while you can't disprove him (agnostic) you don't believe he exists (atheist). Same with god, we can't with 100% confidence say he doesn't exist but we believe he doesn't because believing otherwise is irrational. Some religious people think we don't want to believe. No (we don't really bother with it), we are not able to believe even if we wanted to. If i say you to believe that there is floating invisible cup in front of you, i doubt you can force yourself to believe it.
@@ojgfhuebsrnvn2781 Yes very true and well said, I still feel like if someone asked me if I believed in Santa Claus I'd say I didnt believe in him, but that specifically I was maybe agnostic towards him. I like what you said about how because you CANT disprove either God or Santa it makes sense to be agnostic towards the idea. Personally im an igtheist. I dont think the idea of God is a coherent one to begin with, otherwise ya I'd be agnostic probably. (But I consider igtheism also under the umbrella term of atheism kind of like agnosticism) But I know different people hold slightly different definitions and views towards these ideas
Hi Trent, just a quick question, why dont atheist or apologetics bring in the lives of the saints in the discussion? Isn't it the lives of the saints presents all the facts, evidence and in some cases witnesses that they need?
The problem is that atheists just dismiss them. Ancient/medieval miracles-->legends or mass hysteria. Modern miracles-->mass hysteria. Healings-->coicidence. Exorcisms-->misunderstod mental problems. Also i think most protestants would not want to present Catholic Saints as proof
As an atheist, I pretty much agree with everything Trent has said. I don’t think there can be physical evidence that will convince me that god exists being that it’s in his essence that he is supernatural. Logical syllogism would really be the thing I’d need to be convinced. I have just yet to find an argument that is genuinely convincing.
Assuming reasonable is bad, because one mans reasonable is not the same as another mans reasonable. One man can see the intelligence and beauty of nature as reason for the belief in God, while another considers natural law as the reason for everything. IMO if one could prove God's existence, then what merit would faith provide?
they also have plenty of atheism of the gaps. Example 1A being the unobservable and unprovable multi-verse, their only response to the fine tuning argument (which is based on observable evidence)
Actually, not all physicists agree there _is_ fine tuning, and not all philosophers agree would even be a good argument if you could. But I'd agree any multiverse notion that doesn't make any testable predictions is useless other than as a thought experiment or fantasy. The reason why so-called 'fine tuning' is also useless is because nobody can yet demonstrate the fundamental forces could have been any different. The notion that _if you varied the gravitational constant_ or whatever else, depends on that possibility, of which there is no observable evidence whatsoever. I'd also argue that nobody knows the effect of varying *all* constants and forces (magnitudes, directions) at the same time - there may be many feasible physical universes that operate on _totally_ different laws altogether. It's too much like cherry picking to say if you varied (only) the gravitational constant in this universe you wouldn't get stars. If they could vary (unproven) then there's no good reason to base your conclusions on changing any one particular change at a time. 'Naturalism of the gaps' is also a silly accusation to level, by the way. As if you'd never heard of induction.
Oh, there are plenty of responses to the fine tuning argument. The first one being that you can't prove that if the universe's "fine tuning" was slightly different, a different form of life couldn't exist in it. At this point the multiverse concept - actually concepts as there are several different ideas on what could construct a multiverse - is just that - concepts to be explored. No scientist is saying, "Hey, here's a phenomenon. It happens because of the multiverse."
Your reasoning is clear. So why would you name your channel after a religious council which could only oppose the soteriological truths of the Holy Bible by pronouncing anathemas (curses) on Protestants who taught them?
There is the case of the French writer Émile Zola who apparently witnessed a healing miracle in Lourdes, France, of "Marie Lemarchand who was afflicted with three seemingly incurable diseases: an advanced stage of lupus, pulmonary tuberculosis, and leg ulcerations the size of an adult’s hand. Zola describes the girl’s face on the way to Lourdes as being eaten away by the lupus:"(The Crisis Magazine) The Lourdes skeptic still refused to believe in miracles.
As an Agnostic Atheist, let me take a stab at it. You're right, of course, in that any given physical standard you set runs the risk of just having a natural explanation. I suppose the difference between "guess what is written on the card" and "re-arrange the stars in the sky to form clear and legible words" is mainly one of scale; but I think the fact that the latter contravenes several known laws of physics, whilst the magic trick (obviously) does not is a vital distinction. For that reason, if you could demonstrably break known laws of physics at will under laboratory conditions, that would certainly help with getting me to believe there was a supernatural dimension, and from that position I might be more open to arguments for the existence of supernatural entities. The problem with "demonstrating philosophically" is that it is extremely hard to put the argument to bed. All 3 examples Trent listed (existence of other minds, objective moral truths and numbers as abstract objects) have quite long standing philosophical traditions that deny those things exist. I myself am not convinced external, objective moral truths exist; and numbers as abstract entities, I think, exist only in so far as they are instantiated in a mind. Personally, I have been forced to scrutinize whether I am guilty of a sort of "metaphysical chauvinism" that discounts the existence of metaphysical objects precisely because of their nature as non-physical. So in the name of honest inquiry, I've simply been attempting to do as Matthew 7:7 suggests: "Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you". To date, my attempts to make some form of personal contact with God, Jesus or anything else for that matter have failed; despite asking for and receiving advice on exactly how to go about doing it.
Praying for you! I love that you’re looking for truth as we all should! Don’t give up! I’ve never been an atheist but if I could give you one piece of advice I would suggest learning to pray the scriptural rosary and just pray it for 40 days. It takes about 20 minutes a day.
@@raygrasso1612 Sorry to correct you, but as Theist/Atheist is whether or not you believe in a God, and Gnostic/Agnostic comes from "gnosis", meaning "knowledge"; so it means whether or not you think you know one way or the other. So a Gnostic Atheist would be an atheist who thinks they know beyond a doubt that there is no god, and an Agnostic Atheist doesn't claim to know for sure, but doesn't believe there is a god. Does this distinction help?
@@joecardone4887 I appreciate the positive response, and I do own a Rosary (I thought it wrong of me to make judgements without trying it); but I've found it hard to both remember what to say and meditate on whichever mystery I'm on at the same time. I'll keep trying but it normally takes me longer than 20 min to get through it properly without making mistakes! xD
"What evidence would make it reasonable for someone to believe God exists?" The same evidence that would make it reasonable to believe any specific thing exists.
My Dad passed away in 2008. If my Dad came back to life on this earth, it would give credibility to the resurrection claim. If my resurrected Dad, who was an Atheist, said "The God of Abraham is responsible for my resurrection," it would give testimony to the claim. If that God then revealed himself to me and explained and adequately reconciled the heinous acts and contradictions of the Bible, I would say I would have no choice but to believe. The God of Abraham revealed himself, "in person" a number of times in the Bible. Resurrection is in the Bible. I'm not asking for random acts of unexplainable awe.
"For those with faith, no evidence is necessary. For those without it, no evidence will suffice." - Thomas Aquinas
I have faith in that the Bible was just a collection of stories, that has been manipulated over the years. I need no evidence to know that GOD does not exist.
and he was completely right.
Faith is where reason goes to die.
@@kennyrogers3602 cope
@@kennyrogers3602 yeah am thats not how reality works sir
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:
00:17 🤔 God of the gaps objection claims that arguments for God's existence fail by relying on gaps in knowledge.
01:11 🌌 Atheists avoid supernatural explanations to explore unknown natural ones; some Christians share this approach.
03:56 🕊️ Atheists propose hypothetical scenarios as evidence for God, but they may still commit "God of the gaps" fallacy.
06:12 🔄 Some atheists dismiss classical arguments for God, yet present their own hypothetical evidence.
08:45 🤷♂️ Asking what would convince someone of God's existence relies on feelings more than rational discourse.
11:17 🔬 Science seeks natural explanations; proving God's existence requires philosophical reasoning.
13:48 🤝 Being convinced of something doesn't necessarily make it reasonable; focus on rational discourse.
15:12 🤔 Can a person rationally believe in God? Acknowledge philosophical arguments and varying perspectives.
18:40 📚 Encourage critical examination of arguments for and against God's existence to approach truth.
I would’ve watched a 20 minute video that was just cutting back and forth from Matt dillahunty agreeing with Alex O’Conner and then saying that Alex O’Conner is unreasonable
then blocking Alex without warning.
@@airplayrule what are you saying that Matt Dillahunty blocked Alex after making that remark in the debate? I wonder if it was because of that or something else that happened, that’s crazy.
I've spent years reading about and listening to a lot of folks discuss this issue - what would convince a non-theist that theism is likely true - and this has to be one of the finest resources in this context.
A miracle would move me closer to being a theist. Something like a Damascus road experience.
When god takes me for a beer. Then I'll believe he exists.
@@RichardDuncan-ju1xk God has done a lot more than buying you a beer (which God wouldn’t have to pay for)… God has sent his only begotten Son to offer you eternal life. You must accept the offer, however!
@@michaelderobertis5456 I must have slept in that morning. Can he do it again for us that missed it?
@@michaelderobertis5456, writes _"God has done a lot more than buying you a beer [...]"_
So you say, but since you can present no good evidence for your claim you sound disingenuous, ignorant, or deluded.
Ok, fair question. I am an atheist, and I have no idea what sort of evidence would definitively demonstrate the existence of any deity. You cited several examples, and I myself have contemplated the specific example of the stars being rearranged to spell words. I didn't know anybody else had ever proposed that lol. But my problem is, at several levels, I cannot find a means by which even that event would demonstrate deity, as that term is probably being used here.
To me, the biggest single problem is defining deity. You can't do an experiment to find something you can't define. Let's take the rearranged stars problem. What eliminates the possibility that some very advanced species is projecting us as a hologram, and our entire universe could be rearranged at will? Theists raise this kind of superpower for their deity all the time. But what precludes the possibility of some natural being much greater than us, but much less than absolute deity, being able perform such an act?
Or take the hologramming out of the equation. Now you have a being who simply has such a profound understanding of physics they know how to deploy enough controlled energy to rearrange stars as a form of communication? So what? That does NOT necessarily demonstrate deity per se.
Which gets us back to our definition problem. Only by arbitrarily redefining deity to include some power X, and arbitrarily exclude all other beings from having said power X, can we formulate a test for the existence of this version of deity. The problem is this utterly collapses as a way to specifically demonstrate the Abrahamic deity. It was once widely believed that only the gods could generate lightning. So if you saw lightning, you were seeing evidence of deity. Thor, Zeus, whoever. Virtually any deity could be substituted into this definition.
So the 'power' theory of defining deity can never provide closure. Raise somebody from the dead? Advanced biology perhaps, but not necessarily deity. Manufacture a local universe? Fantastic. Definitely a being to be feared. But deity? The absolute source of all reality? How do you get there? I don't think it can be done. Yes, I know about Kalam, and the modern variants of Kalam. I think they all have unfixable holes.
So at the risk of sounding like I'm just throwing my hands up in despair, well, I am. I do not know of a single thing that could be done to show the existence of deity as that term is normally used by Abrahamic theists. Yahweh to me is nothing but a tribal war god subservient to a higher deity, who then got an unexpected promotion and now runs the whole show from a remote place that can't be detected by any of the reliable detection methods humans normally use to detect things. The other word for that being 'unfalsifiable.' 'Fictional' also works here.
Now I understand that atheism can be misconstrued as 'nature of the gaps' or 'science of the gaps.' But as you stated early on, we have literally no choice but to start with what we know and work from there. What we know first and foremost is the data our brains receive from the outside world on physical paths of perception. We see color, we hear sound, we feel the weight of our own body as we struggle to learn how to deal with gravity. In that sense, 'nature' or 'science' are proxies for things we experience in our shared physical reality, things we can do experiments on.
For example, I can convince my flat-earth friend (and I do have one) the earth is a globe using science, and based on nature. Could I convince him by simply asking him to imagine the world is a globe? Because he could also imagine the world was a cube, or a dodecahedron, etc. If he preferred to believe the world was not a globe, how would I cure the gap in his knowledge? I would have to resort to evidence we both share, evidence we could test. His imaginative remaking of the earth could be falsified.
But how can I do that for an alleged entity for whom the only 'evidence' is a brain state? Where there is no impact on physical reality that can be tested? Where I have no ability to show whether this alleged being exists only in this person's imagination, versus existing in some unreachable state beyond the reach of physics?
At the end of the day, it seems all too convenient that this alleged being has priests and imams and preachers all running around telling us what they think he thinks, but push come to shove, like the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz, the actual deity is always hiding in some unreachable place, always out of reach of our ability to verify. A sorry mess for us ordinary folk who never actually get to meet this deity, but a great way to make a living for the guys who run around pretending to represent him.
If you're to take the hypothesis of the Christian God, rather than the mere Abrahamic God, you wouldn't say that we never got to meet Him. And if the priesthood was simply a way to make money, why is it still practiced today, when there are infinitely better ways to make money and with most priests living very simple lives?
@@henryvdl3692 Um, yes I would say there's no sound evidence we ever got to meet the Christian god. All we actually have is an old book, written mainly by anonymous authors, none of whom we can confirm actually met the mythic Jesus figure about whom they wrote. It is 100% hearsay, and none of the hearsay exceptions apply. It's not a reliable story. We might give it some credence if it contained no supernatural elements. But it overflows with claims of miracles. I'm not against miracles. I just don't see anonymous, unverified storytelling as a valid way to show they happened in the real world. And even if you could show they all really happened, you still don't know it was the work of a 'god', or simply unexplained science.
As for priests, etc., I will grant they aren't all Joel Olsteen money makers. So? Many of them are. I live next to a church like that. There is a ton of money in it for the right skill set. Still, there are others who aren't in it for the money. They just want to be close to a god. What's in it for them? Potentially many things. Power. Status. Personal peace of mind. The narcissistic belief that they understand reality better than the nonreligious. All of those things are very human reasons why priestcraft is still practised today. Humans naturally want all those things. They are not evidence for the alleged reality of an invisible superbeing, whether Jesus or Yahweh or Thor.
@@homealoneuniverse1221 I wasn't focusing on the evidence, although there is plenty of that (I would refer you to this video: th-cam.com/video/A0iDNLxmWVM/w-d-xo.html). My point was that it sounded as if you claimed that the Christian worldview says that we are "ordinary folk who never actually get to meet this deity". No reasonable Christian has ever said that, or anything close to that. Forgive me if I've misunderstood.
Once again, power and status can be acquired through other, much less costly means, as can narcissistic satisfaction. I sincerely doubt that people would give up marriage, sex, and other privileges to gain something that can be found through easier methods. Those people are in the minority, which you would discover for yourself if you were to meet a decent number of priests. The vast majority are genuinely kind and generous, which are not traits of a narcissistic or greedy person. Also, I never said that the practice of priesthood is proof of God's existence. I am saying that it heavily implies a sincere belief in God and good intentions, rather than a desire for the alternatives you suggested.
@@henryvdl3692 Ok, first, I do not intend to generalize on motives of clerics of any denomination. There are also Buddhists, Rabbis, Baptist preachers whom I know have chosen near poverty because they think they are doing good. So I don't think we need to argue about that.
My original point is perhaps best understood in an evolutionary context. In our early days we needed religion or something like it to survive a hostile environment. It's a social power amplifier. So even though you may get people with good intentions becoming religious leaders, you can also see how it would be attractive to another category of people. All professions attract some narcissists. But what better place to be a narcissist than a man who claims he speaks the very words of deity? And I have seen it enough in my long life to know it is NOT a coincidence.
As for your first point, I do think you have misunderstood me. So to clarify, I totally get that the Christian worldview claims humanity has met deity in human form. So what? Scientology claims everybody is infested with ancient disembodied aliens and you have to pay their 'priests' a boatload of money to get rid of them. They are both equally nonsense, until and unless a sound evidentiary case can be made to support the claim. Which is why I responded to the above video in the first place. Claims, by themselves, don't mean anything. But a claim of deity is even worse, because it is probably impossible to support, due to the difficulty formulating a theory of evidence that would work in that special case.
I hope that clears things up. Peace.
I would recommend trying to understand what theists mean by God because that would clear up a lot of your misunderstandings and problems. I think a lot of atheists tend to have a narrow, simplistic view of the God of the Bible because he has been painted as a ‘supreme being’ that isn’t too dissimilar to pagan gods. This is not what most believers understand God to be.
I recommend this video to start with: th-cam.com/video/1zMf_8hkCdc/w-d-xo.html
Peace.
The "God of the gaps" argument has always been interesting to me and I sometimes find myself catching my reasoning favoring it. But, on the flipside, I find a notable amount of atheists, both big name atheists and your run-of-the-mill atheists, follow on what I consider the Atheist equivalent of the fallacy it's what I called the "Science of the gaps" fallacy; the notion that everything can be explained away in the realm of science and anything outside of the science is outlandish hogwash.
"Science hasn't an answer yet, but it will."
"Science is the study of what God has created"
@@Con.Air.78 there's actually a singular term for exactly what you described: scientism
@@vaderetro264 which is a faith based claim - something they refuse to admit.
@@mugsofmirth8101 Yes, it's a faith claim, especially because it excludes the idea of a non-naturalistic answer. It would be much better if the claim was 'one day science may prove whether Gods exists'. That's a possibility, in my opinion, for God has created the universe and its laws according to a rational plan, the physical architecture of which is still largely unknown to us.
It's the "nature of the gaps" argument: I can't explain X, but I know it has a natural explanation.
Pretty much
@Brian Farley Always? What about transubstantiation?
In other words, atheism of the gaps
@@Marontyne You mean the process that uses bread, wine, and a man from the natural world?
@@jdotoz The miracle isn't making the bread or the presence of priest. It is true that God often uses natural elements and transforms them into something new, but that's not what Brian claimed. Brian claimed there is ALWAYS a natural explanation for God's miracles. Aside from exceptional miracles, there is no natural evidence to show that the bread and wine become Jesus' body and blood. It's something we believe by faith. It truly is the body and blood of Jesus, but it retains the physical form of bread and wine. That's an example of a miracle that transcends the natural order and cannot be "seen" in the way he described.
Instead of trying to explain how atheism is wrong even though it makes no claims that it could be wrong about... how about you simply *present sufficient good evidence to justify belief in the existence of your god?*
Trent: What would convince you, atheist?
Atheist: >suggests something<
Trent: No, that's no good. There might be a natural explanation. Have you tried just believing?
Maybe, just maybe, what the Atheist suggested was unreasonable? And it says something about atheism if you can say is "suggests something" instead of an actual point.
@@3yearsbeatthem-jg4nc Then here's an actual point. Personally, I'd take Jesus' followers being able to perform miracles like , and greater than, those of Jesus himself. I'd be convinced if you could show me that whenever two or more of Jesus' followers get together, God gives them what they ask for. I'd say the very word of Christ seems a reasonable point to start from.
@@ianchisholm5756 He already responded to that
What makes you think that there's just no natural explanation to it?
Atheism is not a falsifiable claim because it's not actually a claim it's a rejection of a claim we don't have to prove a negative.
Talk about cutting through the fat to get to the meat! This is why I tune in as soon as Trent uploads a video. I raise my coffee mug to Mr. Horn😊
Trent mentions Dietric Bonhoeffer. I would urge anyone to read his book The Cost of Discipleship, an extraordinary read which shook me at a time when I was still an atheist.
Thanks I'm gonna put his book on my list and read it once I have read all my other books 😭. And since I'm German I will buy it in original Deutsch 👌
I listened to this last year. It was so raw to me.
Thank you for the recommendation!
As a Protestant convert to Catholicism I have read much by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His story is fascinating. It pleases me so much whenever I meet a Catholic who knows about Bonhoeffer!! Yay!
It is good. It's a tough read, but good.
Hey Trent, we met at the CCv1 conference last year and I bought and really enjoyed your book Case for Catholicism. Really appreciate all the work you do in your ministry. I'm planning on getting the books you recommended at the end of this video, but was wondering if you have had any other request for an Ultimate Apologist Reading List part 2? I am always looking for book recommendations from leading catholic apologist such as yourself, and would love to get an update to the list you created a few years back. Anyway, keep up the great work and God bless!
No better apologetics than the bible. People want to read every other book besides scripture..not assuming that's you just something I notice.
@@tony1685 huh?
@@Cogi00 What's your view on owning another person as your property? Is that moral or immoral?
Assuming god exists, is it moral for god to punish a person for sins they did not commit?
Assuming god exists, would it be moral for god to prevent someone from doing something and then punish the person for not doing what god kept them from doing?
Assuming god exists, would it be moral for god to punish a person if that person had no way of knowing they were doing something wrong?
@@cnault32441) No, to me it's not. It's how you treat the person that decides if you're being immoral or not.
2) God punishes sinners, not the saints
3) yes
4) I had an understanding of right and wrong at 5 years old so i can't speak for everyone BUT if they truly did not know wrong from right ( haven't met that person yet) i suppose it would be immoral wouldnt it?
@@Cogi00 So your response to my 4 questions asking you for your opinion is:
1) owning a person as your property ( in other words, slavery) is OK
2) I said nothing about saints, you didn't answer the question that was asked
3) whatever god does is OK with you, god can treat people as his toys to do with as he pleases ( so much for free will)
4) if they truly did not know wrong from right ( haven't met that person yet) i suppose it would be immoral wouldnt it?
So you are saying it would be immoral for god to punish a person if that person didn't know they were doing something wrong? Yes or no?
Love the editing in this video. 10/10 😂
I’m Catholic and some of the worst arguments I have heard regarding God’s existence is that they know God exists because “I feel it in my heart.”
On the other hand, I can’t articulate well but I see atheists using fallacies in their arguments against God all the time, someone mentioned the “science hasn’t explained that yet but it will” which is a faith claim, which they appear to be against.
atheism is a modern belief system based on the confrontation with the outdated Christian belief system. Modern science is no different what religion was in the MIddle Ages.
@@KronStaro what would convince you that God exists?
@@beatlecristian ive already convinced myself of it, just not through deceiftful religions.
" I feel it in my heart" is unacceptable to explain God but people say the same thing about romantic love.
@@celestethisandthat8887what about seeing Jesus appear to you. He has appeared to many. You do not receive because you don’t ask. And when you ask but don’t receive. It because you asked wrongly
Regarding reasonableness and convincing and the difference between them etc.
I think a lot of what Trent is saying here is the practical application of the realization that human beings, left to their own nature, are not truly rational creatures. What I mean by this is as follows...
We have the capacity for reason. We have the power of Intellect. Just like we have the capacity of physical strength and the power to run. However, if a person does not train strength, or train running, they will never be really strong and never be able to run really fast or really long distances. Nature, left to it's own devices in a fallen world does not develop, it devolves.
This is just as true in the realm of reason and intellect as it is in the realm of athletics.
In order for man to truly be rational, he must be trained properly. That has always been a rare thing. However, contrary to what most people think, it has actually become MORE rare in the modern world, not less rare.
I have personally never met a single person who was rigorously trained intellectually to root out contradiction in their own views, and to scrutinize their own views for logical consistency as much as they do the views of others.
The few people I have met who do this, developed the skill on their own, usually as a result of reading old books.
If a person is not trained in this way of thinking, then it is virtually impossible to convince them of anything by purely logical / rational argument. This is because what they believe is ultimately not based on logic to begin with. It is based on emotion, sentiment, and other accidents of life. To these people logic is only ever a tool to justify what they believe and to attack opposing beliefs. It is not a means of discovering truth or knowledge. If you are perfectly content to believe contradictory ideas, no amount of logic can ever convince you not to believe those contradictory ideas.
The simple reality is that despite man being the "rational animal" the vast majority of human beings are not governed primarily by reason, and never will be. This idea is an illusion that the modern world has bought into, largely to our detriment. This is also why the "age of reason" and the political and social outgrowths of it are currently proving themselves to be such massive and complete failures.
People do not favor teaching critical thinking for different reasons. But the result is that it does not figure in the teaching plans to teach to think correctly from childhood.
One can guess what would be the benefits of having a population unable to discern intentional or false information in public or private discourse.
Millions of years of human history prove that nature does not " devolve" .
@@snowflakemelter1172 congrats on demonstrating your inability to read.
I have always found it fascinating that imaginary numbers, which do not exist in the material realm are yet a necessary ingredient in modern physics for explaining the natural universe.
Imaginary numbers are in two dimensions. In three dimensions, they cease to be. It's just a convention. Properly, all numbers are imaginary.
Can you give an example ?
@@mugsofmirth8101 Numbers only exist in the ideal plane. One, two, three, they are just abstract constructions.
@@EduardoRodriguez-du2vd my question was for the OP
@@mugsofmirth8101 Sorry!
Exactly! St. Thomas Aquinas' wisdom does shine in his statement, "To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible." As St. John Henry Newman rightly recognizes in his concepts of real assent and informal inference, belief in God and Christianity comes from the accumulation of probabilities. To those insufficiently attentive to the instincts of natural religiosity there is nothing really to say. You need ears to hear.
@Roger Mills I would say faith in a personal God. Claims about God are distinct from philosophical arguments for God. One can be affected by feelings as Trent points out and then there’s logical discourse.
This comment is 2 years old but maybe you will respond anyways: So what if people do not have those instincts for religiosity? What if they are born blind so to speak, and just can't see? How is that fair or a free choice?
@@ThePaull3d Some distinctions would need to be made. The natural human instinct is to be religious, but if that instinct is hampered or has become twisted in some way due to things beyond a person’s control such as an illness that affects their mental state then Catholicism allows room for that. God doesn’t hold people responsible for things that are impossible for them to do, that would be cruel. He isn’t bound by anything though and can present Himself in really particular ways. If one is willfully blind or sees the truth of faith and refuses to submit to it, then that’s a different matter.
People often use the "atheism of the Gaps" If we have difficulty explaining something, the person will say that it is definitely caused by something that exists in a purely non-theistic world.
LOL. Perhaps Trent should reconsider the appropriateness of catchphrases. Understanding that mechanism leads to skepticism.
@@EduardoRodriguez-du2vd atheism is not skepticism
@@mugsofmirth8101 I did not claim that it was.
@@EduardoRodriguez-du2vd many atheists think so
@@mugsofmirth8101 Skepticism is not taking anything for granted, much less what seems obviously contradictory. The need to use critical thinking to build each concept and let reality be the final judge of certainties.
Putting the “God of the Gaps” shoe on the other foot was insightful. In spite of their frequent attacks on believers, it’s crucial to approach atheists with respect and love. Well done as always, Trent!🙏
He really doesn’t put the GotG on the other foot. More importantly, it’s plain religious narcissism that you think you’re the victim here. Christians incessantly argue atheists can’t be moral and will suffer for eternity in a frying pan if they don’t gullibly believe the way they do.
We non-believers are meant to say how we might know an unknowable thing.
But Trent claims victory.
@@brunorhagalcus6132 If a Christian says that atheists can't be moral, then I would say they are wrong. But, instead, atheism has no basis on how something is objectively good vs evil (which many will acknowledge there's good and evil, just are unwilling to say it is objectively, even when they act like it is). This is how the argument goes;
1. It takes a mind to create morals
2. If there's no mind prior to the human mind, then the human mind creates right and wrong
3. Morals would vary depending on which human mind you are talking to (relativism)
4. Instead objective morals exist
5. Therefore God exists.
And on the topic of eternity, the only truly definite thing we know about hell is that it will be separation from God. In other words, hell is God's greatest compliment to human dignity/free will.
@@tylerjones3514 objective morality exists because god exists and god exists because objective morality exists. That’s circular and none of it demonstrates a god which means you’re “acting like your moral code is objective”.
Also, which of the 50,000 morally-conflicting Christian denominations holds the objective knowledge? And which person within that denomination holds it? It must conveniently be you, right?
You can’t demonstrate a god exists. You can’t demonstrate hell exists.
@@brunorhagalcus6132 That's not how I put it, is it? But go ahead and twist my words so you don't have to think too hard on it. But I wouldn't say it is confined only to me having the objective moral code. Instead, I'm convinced that each and every person has a conscience that ties them into moral absolutes. Though I should clarify, there are some relative morals as well, but I would say when you see justice being violated, you don't sit back and say, "That person has a different set of morals, therefore they're right for themself." Instead, you become agitated because you're conscience informs you that real evil has been perpetrated.
Now, how do I know there's going to be a heaven and a hell? Only because I consider Jesus Christ to be trustworthy, so when he talks about a heaven and a hell, I take keen interest.
Let’s goo! Trent Horn finally gettin spiffy with the edits. In all seriousness, I enjoy all your videos. Thank you Trent!
Trent has taught me so much on how to defend our faith!!! 💙💪
I love his non aggressive approach. I've tried it and most protestants don't know how to react to kindness lol BUT I have actually been able to talk to aggressive
Protestants and through kindness we have been able to have civil dialogue 😊
God bless! 🙏❤️💙❤️🙏✝️🛐
Wish I could say the same; but, I'm working on it.
@@pcm7315 lol it's not easy because they are almost always in defense mode and ready to throw scripture at you. So I understand that going in and I try to get them to just have a normal person to person conversation with me. Then I ask questions and they 9/10 just have misconceptions or just uninformed about the Catholic faith.
@@hiimdominic3780 this is very true for me too lol
your first mistake is being religious. god is not religious, there is no one true religion that explains god better than the other, there is no one religion that god prefers over the other. based on these facts, you should make a logical conclusion.
@@KronStaro There’s history and facts about certain Religions and their accuracy
This is my favorite video you’ve put out, Trent. Thank you! I do have one follow up question - what is a characteristic that would distinguish an entity from being in the category “natural” vs. the category “supernatural”? You (rightly) accuse atheists of demanding a natural token of evidence to prove a supernatural entity. But I’m not sure that I’ve clearly heard a definition of “supernatural” in the first place. It seems like we can only grasp the supernatural through philosophy and abstract thinking.
And for the record, I am Catholic 🙂 just one with questions.
Natural being (e.g. pantheism) = _internal_ of time and space.
Supernatural being (e.g. theism, deism) = _external_ of time and space.
@@hhstark8663 If the multiverse theory were true, any other universe would be outside the time and space of *our* universe, but contain its own space-time. Would it be natural or supernatural? What about the multiverse matrix they spawn from? Would that be natural or supernatural?
@@hhstark8663 thanks, but this is not totally satisfying because you’ve only explained it in the negative, i.e. what a supernatural being is NOT (not in time and space). The atheist would say, we can only know things that are in time and space, to say otherwise is nonsensical
@@RustyWalker In multiverse, multiverse can be both true and untrue. In multiverse, Elvis is both dead and living
@@thomasnoone5426 'Outside or beyond time and space' is not negative. My unconscious mind can know things that are beyond time and space. I not know it now but I can be conscious of it in the future. PROOF: some of my past dreams which became reality
As an atheist, before showing me evidence of any god, you would need to provide me with an explanation of how exactly I am supposed to believe in something beyond space and time when I define existence as being within space and within time at some point. There was no time before the universe, so how can something have existed before the universe in order to create it? You could just say that it is a simple truth that God is beyond spacetime, but that's not the problem. I find the mere idea of something existing beyond spacetime to be inherently nonsensical, incoherent, and inconceivable.
So then did time always exist, as an infinite point, or was it necessary inevitability? If these two positions are false or illogical, then we come to a third choice: a first mover. One that created time that has no origin and exists by necessity itself.
Its also not really that hard to comprehend. We can think of abstract ideas that have no bounds in the physical universe, such as numbers. Yes, there's the description we give of it that are human construct, but it doesn't matter if it is called 'I,' 'one' or 'uno,' its numerical value is still '1,' and our universe has been found to follow many rules according to numerical values, such as the Universal constants. However, these numbers themselves hold no tie to spacetime themselves, and thus are something not bound to time, space and perception.
@@luxither7354
Time has always existed in the sense that it has existed for all time, but time has not existed for an infinite amount of time.
Why can’t time exist by necessity itself?
I can imagine whatever I want, but I can’t conceive of something existing outside of time and space in a way that is logically consistent with what I consider the concept of “existence” to mean.
It may be that our definition of existence is one that we have created as humans, but that doesn’t contradict the fact that I can’t see how one could believe in something “existing” when it doesn’t fit our definition of existence without employing some form of doublethink.
Therefore, for me to understand how something can exist without conforming to our definition of existence, someone would have to give me a new definition of existence that both permits God to exist and also remains consistent with our empirical observations of the universe.
If such a definition exists, please provide it to me.
@@legospaceskeleton "I find it the mere idea of something existing beyond spacetime to be inherently nonsensical, incoherent, and inconceivable."
Where is the contradiction? What makes it nonsensical?
"Why can’t time exist by necessity itself?"
If you claim that the past is not infinite, and also claim time exists without a first mover and is by necessity, then you've found yourself in a metaphysical absurdity. How can time be caused if there was no time to cause it if atheism is true and there is no mind to move it?
Who's "us"? What do you mean by "our definition"? What you're saying is not clear.
Existence is the the ontological property of being. Empirical observations are not the only way to understanding truths about reality, and to assume so would be begging the question for naturalism, and would also be self defeating.
@@DarkArcticTV Thanks for the reply. I’m currently on holiday and so will be busy for the next few days, but I’ll try to get back to you about all this at some point soon.
@redeye5440 So time is an eternal reality?
I've watched that William Lane Craig part about 25 times already... 😀
It never fails to disappoint 😂
He needs the pixilated sunglasses to come down onto his face
Trent hits the nail on the head at about 10:52. Perfect explanation of the problem with just about every atheists' objection to God.
"I'll believe a supernatural being exits if you can prove it is a regular part of the natural world that we observe." That isn't what I would consider to be a "Perfect" explanation because it leaves you open to limitless claims with regards to the "Supernatural". Examples include quite literally any and everything, ie. Ghosts, Santa, Tooth-fairy, Elves, Witches, Flying Spaghetti Monsters, the list goes on.
@@jb31969 You are correct. It isn't perfect. My mistake. Of course, there is no perfect argument, even in science as Popper's principle of falsifiability demonstrates. The very fabric of reality can't be known 100% for certain; there is no absolute proof we are not in the Matrix, so again, great point about it not being a perfect argument. But it is a damn good one.
If the job of science is to explain natural phenomenon, then it is wholly unsuited to explaining supernatural phenomenon. We must then use other tools of determining which supernatural phenomenon are credible, and which aren't. And we have those tools; logic, reason, and metaphysics. For example, logic dictates that if we went to the top of Mt Olympus, we won't find giant divine beings arguing. But logic also dictates that there must be an external cause to the universe, a first mover if you will. Reason would argue that the flying spaghetti monster is a made up because we can separate it into three constituent parts and identify where each of the three came from, whereas we have no idea where the concepts of spirit, divinity, or other metaphysical terms comes from. We can not divide these phenomenon into constituent parts and explain how humans put it together, which suggests at some point they must have been experienced as a distinct phenomenon.
It's pretty silly to think that atheists wouldn't concede on the existence of the supernatural when there is an expectation for how the natural world works and how the supernatural would change it as described by holy books. If Jesus himself should up in the modern world and started preaching and healing the sick with his touch I wouldn't say that this is just some "natural undiscovered power", since this is something that would be consistent with what the Bible describes. But none if that matters because all you need to disprove the popular concepts of benevolent gods is the myth of free will paired with sin and hell, and the problem of natural evil/disasters.
@@jb31969 The point is that proving something is a part of the natural world means it isn't supernatural, by definition. Therefore, it can't be done.
@@davidreinker5600 Sure, the problem is if you use that metric, you can't say the tooth fairy isn't real, or Santa, or ghosts etc
The issue I run into is what evidence would convince you to switch over to another religion? If you say nothing you don’t care about truth.
I'm a Nonduality Theist. This is a great episode and this channel is IMO one of the better, well thought through channels that covers this type of subject matter.
I love the even-handedness and intellectual honesty of Trent’s arguments.
I don’t think that anyone who subscribes to dogmatic presuppositions and tries to wrap every thought around those presuppositions can be intellectually honest.
@@wesley3300 How come?
@@alecfoster5542 because anything accepted as dogma must either reject or assimilate new information into its mold. If one rejects new data that is factually correct, then they are choosing to believe in untruth. If, on the other hand, one assimilates new data into itself, then the truth of the data is made serviceable to the held dogmas, which requires a certain amount of dissembling. At best, the dogmatist finds data that simply fits easily into their model; at worst, they fabricate reasons for contradictory ideas to fit within their dogma.
That is the business of theology: dissembling and interpreting the data of reality to feed their particular dogmatisms.
To be fair, I think if we’re all honest, none of us is as intelligent as we want to think we are, let alone intellectually honest.
@@wesley3300 sounds like the dogma of scientism which has become the religion of secular leftists
@@wesley3300 I appreciate what you are saying, but I think Trent would readily admit the limitations of dogma and suppositions. In other words, he can't ultimately "prove" everything. That's why they call it "Faith" after all. In this sense, I would not label him as intellectually dishonest.
I love the improvement of the channel Trent (don't stop), but seeing you in HD 1080p is sooo weird lol
re: God of the gaps. Apparently the Catholic priest Lemaitre, who found the solution of GR where everything expanded from a singularity, advised the Pope not to make the "big bang theory" (not was it was called at the time) a dogma of the church. Because Lemaitre, a scientist as well as a priest, knew science advances, and the theory may turn out to be wrong or incomplete.
I'm an atheist. The best argument for the existence of God is the fine tuning argument. It really is quite convincing. If one of the couple dozen or so physical constants were different by a mind-boggling minuscule amount that we wouldn't be here. My biggest problem with it is the water puddle story from Douglas Adams.
The environment around the water puddle isn't "fine tuned" to give the water puddle its shape. It's the other way around, the water puddle conforms to its environment, that's what gives it its shape.
Similarly, perhaps if there were different physical constants there wouldn't be life or the universe as we know it, but maybe there would be a different kind of universe with a different kind of life that arose out of those different physical constants.
Also, we don't even have a full grasp on the physical laws of our own universe, so talking about what a different universe would be like with different physical laws and constants is speculative at best.
Edit: I forgot to include that the multiverse is also a candidate explanation for this. If there are an infinite number of universes then there are bound to be some which support life, and that's one we find ourselves in. The multiverse also seems like a more likely explanation than God because it's a logical step that's been made and verified by science multiple times. We discovered there are other continents with people than just the ones we live on. We discovered there are more planets than just Earth. We discovered that the stars in the sky are the same as the Sun. We discovered there are billions of galaxies besides the Milky Way. Now we have the universe, and it doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility at all that there may be a multiverse with many, if not an infinite number of universes. (End edit.)
Another edit: We also don't know how much variation the physical constants could possibly have. Yes, if they were different by a mind-boggling minuscule amount then our universe as we know it wouldn't exist and we wouldn't be here. However, it might be the case that the possible variation is even smaller than that, or it might even be zero, in which case the argument fails. (That would bring up a different set of questions and arguments, but the fine-tuning argument would fail. End edit.)
I do really want God to be real. I'd like to be a Christian. The community, meaning, love, having a higher purpose, etc., is very appealing. I don't like it that nihilism, in my view, is correct. One day I'll be gone, everyone I love will be gone, humanity will be gone, the Earth, Sun, and galaxy will be gone, and all that'll exist for infinity is cold, empty space devoid of absolutely anything at all.
However, my feelings, what I want, what is appealing, what I don't like, etc., has exactly zero bearing on what is true. I can't just make myself believe something, I have to be convinced that it's true. Unfortunately, I believe the truth is that we live in an ultimately meaningless universe.
So are you a nothing person or something on the origin of the universe? Specifically what is the source of your existence?
@@onestepaway3232 I'm not sure what you're saying. I am composed of atoms. Atoms come from the universe. Where the universe comes from is unknown.
Let me put it to you this way. Would a multiverse disprove God, or would it further prove His omnipotence and infinity? I say, it would prove His omnipotence and infinity, as now we have several multiverses, and these multiverses still operate under the same rules as our universe, with some variation that is still not drastic enough to break what we know. However, what we have to keep in mind is that science proving God really only scratches the surface of Who God is. How do I mean? Science proves God as Creator, that much we know, but if that's all He did, then, Who IS God? We see that God is more than a Creator. For instance, God created Humans in His Image, and we share three attributes, with one being well known, the other being less known, and the other completely unknown. The Body is what we know through biology. The Body breathes, it digests, it feels, tastes, smells, looks, hears, and balances. The Soul is the least known, and all we really have to show for the Soul is emotions and complex/abstract thought. The conscious, if you will. The Spirit is the attribute we do not know anything about, even Christians are on the fence of what the Spirit is, and many people say it doesn't exist. But to get to the meat of Who God is, He is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. God also loves you. It may sound empty, but it really isn't. God created you, and God loves you. He loves you so much, He created you one of a kind, and created you to not be a robot. God loves you so much, He waits for you with open arms. God loves you so much, that He gave His only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die, not for the white man, or the Jew, but for the sinner. The sinner is you, and the sinner is me. The sinner is the Buddhist and the Muslim, the atheist and the pagan, the apostate and the believer. God died for ALL of us, for every single one of us, and resurrected so that whoever believes and puts faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, surrenders to Him, and requests for His love, they will not die, but receive an eternal life, free of pain, of sickness, of suffering, of tears and of sin, forever. Name one other god whose love is so great, they did all of that for their creation. Exactly, there is no pagan god that has done that. Those false gods want your good works or animal/human sacrifices. But what does God want from you? Your faith. For it is grace through faith that saves a sinner for an eternity.
I've always found it strange that the debate centers around "proving the supernatural". I see the problem in a different way than most from what discussions i've seen, which is that, a lot of theists say you can't prove the supernatural because it's outside of nature, and therefore out of the reach of science. But, if the "supernatural" was ever confirmed, wouldn't it just become a part of the natural? To me it seems like supernatural is just a way to describe yet unexplained phenomena. Once it's explained, it's not supernatural anymore. If we ever found out god was the explanation, he would just be natural at that point, right?
I'd say no, as God operates outside of the rules of nature. Even were He scientifically proven (which I do not think can happen due to the nature of science), He would still not fit into natural phenomena, as the rules and natures of the natural world would not affect Him, rather, he would be seen as that which originates the natural world in itself, being above it, supernatural.
@@DerPinguim First off, you're assuming we understand the rules of nature, which we probably don't fully. You're saying he doesn't fit into "natural phenomena", but that's our current understanding of natural phenomena, which could change. Second, science is the pursuit of knowledge, not the study of natural phenomena, so if god is proved in ANY way, it's still scientific. He obviously just hasn't been proven in any way yet
Super or beyond our known dimensions (nature) is the FIFTH dimension and higher which are Natural.Godly.
This was definitely one of your best videos. Excellent presentation. Thank you Trent.
For sure!!! 👍
Excellent presentation? The question is:
"What would prove god exists?"
The question is moot until the person asking that question has presented a clear definition for the god.
To be a clear definition for the god for the god, it cannot contain:
- vague attributes
- logical fallacies
- unproven claims
An example for an unproven claim would be to say god exists in a realm outside our universe without first proving the existence of a realm outside our universe.
When a theist does not clearly define god and asks the question "What would prove god exists?", the theist is saying I won't tell you what god is, but can you tell me what would prove god exists?
This video's "one question atheists can't answer" is: "What would prove god exists?"
The question is moot until the person asking that question has presented a clear definition for the god.
To be a clear definition for the god for the god, it cannot contain:
- vague attributes
- logical fallacies
- unproven claims
An example for an unproven claim would be to say god exists in a realm outside our universe without first proving the existence of a realm outside our universe.
When a theist does not clearly define god and asks the question "What would prove god exists?", the theist is saying I won't tell you what god is, but can you tell me what would prove god exists?
We have constantly, over the centuries, seen phenomenon that were originally given a supernatural explanation, replaced with a scientific and rational explanation. We have YET to see a scientific and rational explanation for a phenomenon replaced with a supernatural one.
I’m a bit late to this, but as a I’m currently an Atheist I’m happy to address your question.
I think the fine tuning, kalam and other philosophical arguments are not very good arguments for the Christian God. For most of these dilemmas a “I don’t know and nor do you” answer is the only honest answer. If you ask a physicist for example, what causes the BiG Bang, they might have hypotheses based on available information. But the answer to which hypothesis is correct is always “I don’t know”. And the hypotheses is Never God because there is no data to back that up. It seems quite arrogant to say it was definitely God that created the observable universe. That is why Atheists sometimes argue that if you do postulate it is God who created the observable universe, that you are committing the “God of the gaps” fallacy.
And this kind of reasoning applies to most philosophical arguments for God.
So unfortunately for me I guess, I would only be convinced there is a God, if there is some scientific proof presented. Something you say is impossible because God is Supernatural. If God is real though, he can enter the natural world as he did in the form of Jesus. So I might be convinced if I ever met Jesus version 2. But I can’t be sure.
To be fair though, I’m a scientist and I do trust the scientific process generally. If I was born in a different culture or place or time, I’d probably believe in God.
People are just easily convinced generally about something being true if the majority of a population believe it to be true. I’ve just been lucky to grow up in a country where most people don’t tend to be brought up (indoctrinated) to follow a particular belief.
I would love to go through a scientific exercise with you. But we would need some ground rules. We must adhere to the scientific method, any conclusion we come to must be based on available evidence, and any evidence or conclusion may not be undermined by the promise of future and contradictory evidence which is not yet known. That is pretty standard practice for the process of scientific inquiry, can we agree on this?
It may have been worthwhile to note that Dan Barker's previous career was as an ordained pastor. His book, "Godless" recounts his leaving the ministry and Christianity. Well worth reading.
This video is so rich with good thinking. Thanks for this.
This is the stupidity about religion. It's not the god of the gaps the problem, is that you don't have direct sufficient evidence for god.
Remember that time God performed numerous miracles in direct sight of Pharaoh but because his desire for worldly power was so great each time it only hardened his heart to God more?
According to a story in the bible. Of course, the bible also says that Pharaoh was about to release the Israelites, but God harnded his heart..I guess the Angel of Death has pretyt big cancellation fees, or God just gets off on seeing kids get killed?
@@richardgregory3684 Ya Pharaoh was going to release the Israelites in the midst of the latter plagues, but when each plague ended Pharaoh changed his mind again to keep them captive. It’s not complicated. As soon as he wasn’t being directly impacted by God’s power his heart was hardened and he resisted God again. This wasn’t God removing Pharaoh’s free will, it was God knowing and telling Moses that pharaoh would resist Him. God doesn’t change His mind and God doesn’t remove people’s free will, if you think so please find me any other examples.
Also, you can’t say ‘according to a story in the Bible’ to dismiss me and then cite the exact same story from the Bible to make your case. How does that work? Lol
@@IllogicalMachine Exodus 9:12 "And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh"
Exodus 10:1 "And the LORD said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh: for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might shew these my signs before him:"
Exodus 10:20 "But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go."
So the bible story makes it absolutely clear beyond doubt, that *GOD* hardens Pharaoh's heart. That is clearly interfering in free will. Moreover, the story openly admits that God did this for the purpose of causing Pharaoh to continue to refuse to release the Israelites so that God could then "show his signs". In other words, God was deterined to inflict the plagues on Egypt and when it looked like Pharaoh was about to submit, God interfered to ensure he had an excuse to carrying on punishing Pharaoh for disobedience (which God caused). And of course, punishing the Egyptians too, even though they were innocent and had no say in the matter. Even we mere humans have outlawed "mass retribution", that is, punishing a whole population directly for the actions of a minority of it.
_Also, you can’t say ‘according to a story in the Bible’ to dismiss me and then cite the exact same story from the Bible to make your case. How does that work? Lol_
It works because it exposes the way the bible presents self-contradictions, and exposes the lie that "God doesn;t interfere in free will", which is the excuse Christians invariably quote when asked why God doesn;t stop a maniac from shooting a dozen kids with a machine gun.
Of course the whole thing is nonsense and this is but one example of Christianity's internal inconsistency.
God of the gaps or Naturalism of the gaps arguments do seem to suffer from the same weakness. But I find that the conclusions of these arguments are usually different. "Science can't explain X, but it might one day". If the argument were typically "God doesn't explain X, but it's possible He might ..." then I wouldn't be nearly so sceptical.
Anytime a prominent speaker makes a video titled "atheists can't answer this question" some fedora tipper will make a response video trying to debunk it. So brace yourselves boys for the incoming cringe...
Hahahahaha, I was thinking that. Bet they are upset
It's an assertion that provokes a response. If you believe strongly that God exists and someone says "This single fact disproves God" I'm sure that you, or one of the many many evangelists out there would try to rise to the challenge. In fact, you would be right to.
The answer to his question really is easy or hard, depending on the particular "God" you're talking about. The God of the Bible as described in the bible is at best unfalsifiable and thus unprovable, or at worse proven false a hundred thousand times over.
If you define God to be all of the Omnis then he's proven false by contradiction. If you define him as unknowable then he's definitionally not provable. Whatever Theist you are has to be addressed before the question can be answered, which seems impossible enough for you guys to figure out.
For some versions of God there are no proofs possible. After all what would convince you that 2+2=7 for all values of 2? I doubt anything could, or indeed should convince you. Why should we have to come up with a way to prove something we've demonstrated to be false? How or why would it be reasonable to demand I come up with a way for 2+2=7 for all values of 2 just to give you something to prove?
I've often found the responses back and forth to be illuminating. After all, he used videos of atheists to help make his points.
Are you ignoring the hyper-cringe of titleling a video "One question atheists can't answer".
There has never been a video so titled that didn't contain cringingly bad arguments.
My take away from this is that the question "What would convince an atheist that God exists?" simply has no value. If it can't be answered to your satisfaction, stop asking it. A better question might be "What question exists that once had a fully satisfactory naturalistic answer, has had that that answer improved by replacing it with a supernatural one?"
As an atheist, I can tell you that I'd have no idea what proof would suffice. But then again, the people who do believe in god, have no proof themselves. Other than personal anecdotal experience, or some arbitrary supernatural explanation. Moses authored the Torah, according to the bible. So that means he wrote Genesis. He wasn't even there! So how can anyone really claim that it's the real creation story? According to your own doctrine, if Moses was a prince of Egypt, then wouldn't it be a fair assertion that he understood the geographic layout of Egypt and all surrounding areas. Have any of you ever traced a path through the desert where he allegedly roamed for 40 years? Why wouldn't he have just headed north to the Mediterranean coast line, and then followed it to the east and north until he got to the area that would later be known as Judah? And for a God who has one of his commandments being, "Thou shalt not kill", he sure doesn't seem to mind ordering the Israelites to murder lots of people. As well as taking slaves and women. But we can forget about all that doctrine because god decided to stop being a sadist and instead came down to Earth to be a masochist and experience all that pain himself. And since he has done that and allowed us to use him as a scapegoat, he's just all hugs and smiles now. And we can forget about that old, jealous, and wrathful god. And you all claim that this literature is proof of god's existence. If God were real, and loved us all as you claim he does, then I'm sure he would make himself known without any worry that his exhibition would be rejected. Especially when to deny him, would certainly be worse than any other thing. No matter how good of a person you were. And no matter how selfless you were. And he would torture you for all eternity. This is your guy? He sounds a little narcissistic. And honestly, all the temper tantrums he's thrown, have a slight hint of borderline personality disorder about them. And as far as your new question goes, there is no good argument for the existence of god at all. Until you can actually show that your argument is based on reality. Because until then, all you're doing is arguing for the existence of a superstition. And religious texts are nothing more than superstitions written down. Your question itself is actually the very reason atheists exist in the first place. Because no argument has ever been presented. There is no proof because there is no evidence. I would have no idea what kind of evidence would even suffice. Because neither of us have ever seen any. And it's ridiculous to bring up the "something out of nothing" ideology. Because the idea itself that "nothing" is actually a plausible explanation for existence to somehow "spring out of", makes no sense at all. Why does there have to be nothing to explain everything. And technically, both of their absolute values are the same. And that is why math itself is so important. Because the only experience any person can ever have is subjective. But math is the closest thing human beings can make use of to get close to some type of objective understanding. But now I've got a question for you. Why would god leave you with the bible, a flawed doctrine that is full of contradictions? If he truly wants us all to believe in him and know that he's real. Then why has he allowed such a flawed and perverse piece of literature to be at the center of his doctrine?
Bro, I’m a reformed Baptist and this was absolutely brilliant and hilarious😂 my man trent is low key a comedian😂
so true. we love trent! you should definitely become catholic man… check out his book the case for catholicism if you’re interested. very helpful to my conversion
No don't become a Catholic, become an atheist. It's fun!
@@joostvanrensno
atheism is lame and pointless
@@BornAgain223 God is a meaningless answer to a meaningless question.
Hi there, atheist here. I greatly enjoyed the video and appreciate the even handed approach.
I must admit that I have to hang my hat on the first two arguments that you provided. I've said before that testable, repeatable evidence that proves a deity to the exclusion of other explanations, though I do admit that I don't know what that would be.
Philosophically speaking, I could personally see a possibility of a sort of guiding hand in the development of life. Something like nurturing spirits, albeit rather impersonal ones, giving different species little nudges here and there.
Now, I could not believe that this would point towards a "Capital G" God, or even an intelligent one, and I also know that this is just an argument from improbability when one boils it down, but the question was for what I thought was best. I really don't find any of them very compelling, to be honest, since one can't argue the sky into being a different color nor can you simply argue a god into existence, and both would almost certainly require a leap in logic (let alone faith) to get to a God.
Thank you again for the video and thank you for the invitation to share my thoughts.
I’m Catholic, we take it on faith and using logic, we can reason that God exists based on observations in nature.
Forgive me for my ignorance but wouldn’t it be more accurate for an atheist to say that they are agnostic?
@@beatlecristian an atheist can be gnostic (knowing) or agnostic (lacking knowledge) that a particular god exists. For example, if your god is the sun, that it brings life, etc. I would be a gnostic theist. I have evidence the sun exists and that plants use the sun for photosynthesis. But if the sun required praise or performed miracles, you would have to present evidence for those claims.
I am a gnostic atheist when it comes to Chiron. I know there could not possibly be a half human half horse animal, so I know for sure Chiron is not a god.
I am an agnostic atheist when it comes to a Christian god because it could be possible, but I haven't see sufficient evidence to say that the Christian god exists.
What evidence would prove the Christian god exists? Something better than has been offered up in the past 1600 years because everything that has been presented so far, does not prove the existence of the Christian god.
@@beatlecristian no it wouldn’t. Atheism/theism addresses beliefs. Gnostic/agnostic addresses knowledge. There’s gnostic atheists and agnostic atheists
@@littleredpony6868 Most people who call themselves atheists are actually agnostics
So, would you accept another explanation:
>We can't explain X. An entity, which is not a god, explains X. Let's call this entity a poof-o-orb, a blob, that has magical powers. It has no mind, no will, it's not a being nor a spirit. The only thing is does is to explain X. Would you accept poof-o-orb to exist?>
You're welcome.
I think rhe Best answer for this question is that,if god is all knowing,he knows the best way to prove himself to us.
Simple answer
Wow this awesome! Love the way you explain things so easy to follow.
Someone who says nothing would convince them, is someone who thinks they know everything and are closed minded to learning.
As an atheist i dont even understand why there are "proofs" of God's existence.
Is this that God wants from us? To logically prove he exists? Why? Why do i even need to do this? Furthermore, if there is PROOF, then there is no more faith.
If God's existence would be proven, it wouldn't be a matter of faith anymore, but of intelligence to understand it.
I made a response answering your question. Not posting the link as it might flag this as a robot. You should find it easily enough.
Going to be honest, I came into this video thinking it was just going to be another low effort video that shows ignorance on the subject. Was pleasantly surprised to see otherwise.
Nice video. This reminds me of something I thought of a while ago where a person experiences a miraculous event it's undeniable in every aspect of the event that it was from outside source. This is absolutely no way that you can convince anybody else around you that this truly was miraculous. I like to sum it up by saying miracles aren't transferable. I really like these videos keep up the good work and may God bless you and your family 👉✝✝✝
It isn't. It could be neurological for some miraculous events.
@@RustyWalker Correct. I know of a person who, having grown up in a predominantly Christian society, became religious because of 'out of body' experience, which he attributed to God. Which god? The Christian one. He went into the ministry. He was the pastor of my church-school when I was a teenager.
When he had the out-of-body experience, nothing supernatural was happening at all. He was a drummer in a rock band. We understand the neurology of that experience very well, and it's repeatable -- no god required. We know what parts of the brain shut down under what conditions, we know why the brain has trouble locating itself as a result. But Average Joe doesn't know. It's a gap in his / her knowledge, and experiences that aren't understood get labelled supernatural.
miracles don't happen. you're mistaken.
@@stephengalanisThe problem Happens when no neurology can explain the events or conclude what happened :/
This is why personal testimony of some skeptical atheists is rather profound.
Its impossible for them of being highly Skeptic of Jesus and yet by all means despite their skepticism said that they couldn't deny what they felt and experienced.
Part of the problem with miracles is understanding probability. What is the difference between an improbable event and a miracle.
Take a recovery from illness that any given person would have to live for a million years to experience. If you encountered it you might well call it a miracle.
However the human population live for 8 billion years every year, so 1 in a million events occur 8000 times a year, or about once 65 minutes.
In populations with low scientific literacy and a embedded religious culture it's very easy to see how credible tales of miracles arise, which in turn give credence to fantastical tales of miracles.
Here is my answer to the question:
God knows exactly what would be reasonable, undeniable, rational, 100% true evidence of his existence that would convince anyone and everyone. We may not know of whatever this evidence would be, but God would know since he is all-knowing. Therefore, all he has to do to turn everyone into Christians would be to reveal that evidence.
Wow this argument just blew me away. I'm absolutely stunned. We all either live by faith or we dont. I have heard it but this is the first time I have ever understood it logically. You just changed this Pastors life
If an omnipotent, omnipresent God that created the universe existed he would know exactly what evidence it would take to convince me
You must be New to the free will you have… you can choose to seek God… It literally says if you seek you shall find… not if you read half heartedly you shall find or if you read narrow mindedly you shall find…. Let your guard down and just read the gospels and re evaluate
God Bless,
@@Mojojojo335 if an all-knowing god with infinite knowledge exists that means he knows every single thought and action that i, or anyone else makes then it would be impossible for me to act with a will that wasn’t already predetermined. if i have free will god isn’t all-knowing.
@@Mojojojo335 i would have no way of acting freely of the script. all my choices would be determined by him beforehand. if i have no choice in the matter, then how can i have free will?
Just because it's possible that God can convince you at a snap of a finger, that doesn't mean he has good reason to, it may not be feasible to do so.
Maybe the God of the Universe only reveals himself to The Chosen so if you don't know Him, it's because you don't fit the bill.
To answer your question in a philosophical way: 18:21
( ( Imagine God is like a videogame developer ) )
A videogame developer created a digital 'universe' within our universe.
The 'universe' the developer made, also has 'characters' . Just like humans in our universe. And just like humans; The characters are able to learn from- and about their 'universe'.
But, the videogame developer had a goal in mind for the characters : "Reach a certain 'score' to advance to the next level."
To get a score they need to complete objectives; By walking through levels, breaking down barriers, overcoming obstacles, helping a friend, helping a stranger, etc.
But the characters can also lose points; By not completing levels, stealing, demolishing property, murder, adultery, swearing, etc.
Now, there's one troublesome part : THE CLOCK !!!
- If a character doesn't get a score high enough to "advance to the next level" in time, the character gets to 'Restart Game' and start with a second "life".
- If your score is high enough : You get to meet your 'Developer'.
( "Escape Reincarnation" - is the name of the game 😂 )
I guess this is very relatable. Farfetched; yet plausible.
Concluding : It's not weird to think we are in a created universe : just like the characters in the game.
Your example is fine, and I also think that people who believe we "live in a simulation" might as well be saying God exists. The Developer is God. Philosophically I can't see the distinction, except for one thing: the simulation folks run the risk of infinite regress... unless they arrive at the Grand Order Developer at some point.
So it's not weird to think that we live in a videogame because you came up with some hypothetical game and arbitrary rules and objectives that can vaguely resemble morals. This is just brainrot
1. If God revealed himself to every culture, as the same being, by the same name, I'd definitely be more inclined to believe.
2. If God didn't hate the very sin that he himself created, and didn't want to punish man for all eternity for being what he made us...
3. If omnipotent God wasn't always surprised aghast and angered by actions that his omnipotence should give him prior knowledge of...
4. If God didn't have some divine plan, and yet somehow take requests against that plan in the form of prayer... [if the plan is perfect, then why should my prayers be answered? If it's his will then won't it be done anyway? And if it'll be done anyway, then why pray for it to be done? That's not answering prayers, that just doing what he was already going to do.]
5. If God could just make perfect beings, (since he loves perfection so much) instead of manufacturing chaos... [why is he such a poor engineer? Heaven and the angels fell apart with Lucifer; Eden and humanity fell apart with Eve, a serpent, & knowledge. Why is he so incompetent? Isn't he supposed to be omnipotent? How do we keep getting the drop on him? 😆
6. If the Bible wasn't so rife with blaring contradictions [there is none righteous, no not one; but Job was called righteous, isn't that one?] 😂 hilarious impossibilities *[ANYONE WHO THINKS THAT THE STARS WILL FALL FROM THE SKY CLEARLY DOESN'T KNOW WHAT STARS ARE!]* and historical inaccuracies...
7 . If God wasn't an evil, jealous, angry, spiteful, murderous, conceited, racist, massaganist, man-child...
*Why would my name be in the book of life? Doesn't God know everything? W.T.H. doe he need a book for? Is God forgetful? Why does he need a throne, does he fatigue? What do I need a mansion for if all I'm going to do in heaven is praise HIM for eternity? Why are the streets made of gold, and pearls and rubies and emeralds? Seriously, how materialistic is God?* I could go on and on...
Well Trent the problem is that "God" is not a well defined thing. I'm a naturalist so in answering your question I'd need clarity what God is. If it's a supernatural or non-natural phenomenon then there simply isn't anything that could prove god's existence, and that is an answer.
If the Omni-God is what you're talking about, to me that model of God amounts to a contradiction, so by definition this would be something that can't exist and again there isn't anything that can prove that to exist.
I never truly understood how epic Craig's clapback was until now. I had no idea Parsons believed the Hallucination Hypothesis. That's funny!
It is not necessary for every biblical account of the "risen Jesus" to be a hallucination. All it would take is one person to hallucinate a brief apparition of Jesus, or one case of mistaken identity, or one lady to stumble across the wrong tomb and find it empty (or make the mistake of thinking there *was* a tomb, given crucified victims were typically left out to rot). Any *one* of those events or any combination could set easily off the rumor mill such that, decades later, there would be dozens of sensational stories on the oral record for the gospel writers to pick up and write down.
This does not make it reasonable to explain away every possible experience as a hallucination. If I believed every story in the Gospels was absolutely experienced *exactly as described* by someone, then it I would doubt they were hallucinated. The descriptions aren't all of things that are common to hallucinate, and it'd be strange for that many to all hallucinate independently and at different times. Peter, however, hallucinating a 30-minute conversation with Jesus, perhaps absolving him of the guilt he felt for denying his teacher and running away, is exactly the kind of thing that can happen and exactly the kind of thing that would set the rumor mill going.
You saw him teleport the card into the orange, there's no other explanation, yet you deny it happened, you say it's the unknown natural. So let me ask: what would convince you that he magically teleported the card? And it can't be repeating and investigating the magic trick, because that would be science (10:10), and science can't prove magic (10:28). It seems your materialism might be unfalsifiable :s
People who think that reality tv shows are "real“ have much more serious problems than just a broken epistemology.😂
Everything you see in those shows is fake, all of the people you see are actors who only pretend to be amazed by the mysterious magic trick.
I saw enough "behind the scenes“ videos that made me question if there are any shows left that aren’t 100% fake especially those highly produced magician shows.
@@ramigilneas9274 hey. You're just wrong. Source, magician who knows more about how the show is produced.
If your God is small enough to understand, he's not big enough for you to worship
Well the miracle would not be a hallucination if you can videotape it.
Basically the argument here is that since it's not very clear what would convince an atheist then you don't need to prove anything.
So convenient.
Even better if it’s repeatable.
The goal is to get god on par with hard science.
God should realistically be sending Jesus to talk to people.
It would be pretty hard to deny a man living for 2000+ years.
Last time I was this early, it wasn't criminal to rely on our immune systems to fight illness.
@Roger Mills Since the dawn of human existence there's always been deadly viral infections. Yet all of a sudden Branch Covidians feel empowered to infringe on the rights of every human being by imposing draconian and unconstitutional mandates which the Supreme Court just rejected on a federal level.
There's many reasons as to why people become atheists and even die-hard atheists, at that. Some of those main reasons are pride and arrogance, as I recognize myself in these aspects, during the 7-year period when I had lost my faith, or reject it, more appropriately speaking. It wasn't until I let go of my pride (which is an on-going battle) and let myself be humbled by Christ, that I was able to ascertain him to be the living truth and way.
Atheism is a blindness and in most cases, it's a willfull blindness, veiled in pride and arrogance. You could write several books on the topic and still have material left... In the end, it is inevitable that one turns to Scripture and see the eternal wisdom of God: "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" - Romans 1:22
Aren’t you expressing massive amounts of arrogance in just this text?
@@lovinit45454 How come? It'd be more helpful if you gave an example and more of an explanation as to why you think that.
As I see it, I am speaking frankly as somebody who was an anti-theist, basically. It is the unfiltered truth of what it entails to be a self-professed atheist.
Identifying as agnostic is reasonable, but being an atheist is simply ludicruous because it is a senseless position to hold if it were true i;e: Theism and theists are the saving grace for atheists to identify as atheists, in the first place.
"Everyone is just like me," says the person who has gotten over his arrogance.
@@chocolatestraw3971 You've clearly got quite a long way to go still if that's your takeaway lol
@@csongorarpad4670 "I don't have a cogent answer so I'll just say you're wrong," - the person who has gotten over his arrogance and totally has an answer for everything.
I think that very few people are convinced by arguments for or against the existence of God,. Because they evaluate the arguments from the position they already have. I think that the road from atheism to theism goes through the practices of theism. For example prayer, worship, taking part in the life of a theistic community. Wich means that the road is chosen.
I'm an atheist and I can answer the question 'What would prove to me that god exists?'..
If he showed himself, like he is reported to have done in the bible, but to a large group of people and there was video evidence of it. That would prove to me that this ridiculous, narcissistic control-freak of a being exists. And then I'd have a lot of questions for him to answer.
Here's some evidence: Please watch and share my four brief videos, which present examples of scientific facts contained in the Bible. These facts could not have been known to the writers thousands of years ago without divine knowledge given to then by God. And scientists today agree with these scientific facts!
That isn't evidence, that was a request to watch your videos. Send me the 'evidence' please
@@RichardWright-hk5oe Richard: I hope you will at least watch my first video, which contains examples of scientific facts contained in the Bible.
In the meantime, I will provide you with one example of a major scientific fact in the Bible:
The writers of the Books of the Bible lived thousands of years ago and could not have known that the scientific facts they wrote down were true without divine inspiration given to them by Jesus Christ / The God of the Bible.
Example: Moses was an isolated sheepherder who knew absolutely nothing about the geologic history of the Earth, which occurred over billions of years by time as we experience it here on Earth.
Yet, Moses wrote correctly in Genesis that during the Earth’s development there was a time when it was totally covered with water and then the dry land appeared in one place (the supercontinent that existed before tectonic plate movement began, of course).
Scientists today agree that the Earth was once covered with water and that land initially appeared in one place, just as the Bible says.
Here are a few links to scientific sites that agree with the Bible that the Earth was at one time a water world:
astronomy.com/news/2020/03/ancient-earth-may-have-been-a-water-world-without-any-dry-land
news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/04/harvard-scientists-determine-early-earth-may-have-been-a-water-world/
www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/ancient-earth-was-water-world
www.livescience.com/waterworld-earth.html
You asked for evidence. Let me know if you want more.
Thanks, and take care.
Still waiting, pal
@@RichardWright-hk5oe Richard: I hope you will at least watch my first video, which contains examples of scientific facts contained in the Bible.
In the meantime, I will provide you with one example of a major scientific fact in the Bible:
The writers of the Books of the Bible lived thousands of years ago and could not have known that the scientific facts they wrote down were true without divine inspiration given to them by Jesus Christ / The God of the Bible.
Example: Moses was an isolated sheepherder who knew absolutely nothing about the geologic history of the Earth, which occurred over billions of years by time as we experience it here on Earth.
Yet, Moses wrote correctly in Genesis that during the Earth’s development there was a time when it was totally covered with water and then the dry land appeared in one place (the supercontinent that existed before tectonic plate movement began, of course).
Scientists today agree that the Earth was once covered with water and that land initially appeared in one place, just as the Bible says.
Here are a few links to scientific sites that agree with the Bible that the Earth was at one time a water world:
astronomy.com/news/2020/03/ancient-earth-may-have-been-a-water-world-without-any-dry-land
news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/04/harvard-scientists-determine-early-earth-may-have-been-a-water-world/
www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/ancient-earth-was-water-world
www.livescience.com/waterworld-earth.html
You asked for evidence. Let me know if you want more.
Thanks, and take care.
Great video. Totally agree about the importance of engaging in philosophical argumentation and reflection when it comes to debating God's existence. For those interested in some relevant Atheistic works that look at the issue of competing explanations, I'd recommend J.L. Mackie's _The Miracle of Theism_ , Gregory Dawes's _Theism and Explanation_ and Jason Beyer's _A Comparison of Judeo-Christian Theism and Philosophical Naturalism as Explanatory Worldviews_
Do you have thoughts on the “limb from nothing vs universe from nothing?” I suppose that doesn’t matter so much as you engage in philosophical discussions that Barker just hand waved away
And for that matter, Trent’s discussion about a miracle being used as proof for a person, but the most “rational” option being something naturalistic?
Real Atheology: Important to remember that philosophy of religion is an invention of the fertile, human imagination. As such, it has much in common with the stories told by our comparatively primitive ancestors. The "stories" of philosophy of religion are more complex, more sophisticated, sure, but they are still a kind of story. The philosophy of religion is essentially making stuff up about stuff that's made up.
I say this because philosophy of religion has become the refuge of the thinking theist. They have somehow persuaded themselves that philosophical arguments can bring "Gods" into existence in the real world, which is absurd, of course.
This is actually a pretty accurate description of theology.
@@karlazeen Yes, it fits and I often lump them together, especially when I am told that I am theologically ignorant, which happens from time to time.
Like philosophy of religion, theology - the study of "Gods" - does not bring "Gods" into existence in the real world.
Fantastic video. Thanks
{note: I know this is a long comment, but if you see this, please take the time to read it because I have something to say here that I often want to, and don't get the chance.}
Okay, I'm only half way through the video, but as an atheist I agree with everything you are saying. However, you could convince me of the existence of the God(s) from a religion, but the general idea of a "god" is so broad that it would be impossible to prove.
Now I have a few reasons as to why I say this. Let me start with some background: everything that we experience is from our own brain, right? We cannot know anything to be true out of our own consciousness. This means that nothing could exist, or there could be an incredible light show going on and we'd have no idea, because our entire experience as living is from our own consciousness - think about Descartes' I think, therefore I am. If you disagree with this, then what I am going to say will mostly not follow logically. If you have any objections to this paragraph, then please reply. I believe that it is the most crucial part of my argument, and also the most... controversial.
Now, let's say you want to prove to me that the Christian God (replace it with any other pantheon, and it is still the same argument) exists. If you could show me predictions from the Bible that matched up with reality enough, then I would believe it. That is how science works. Nothing in science is "proven", it is merely (I say merely, but for it to be corroborated beyond a reasonable doubt it has to be pretty damn unlikely to not be true) corroborated beyond a reasonable doubt. Of course, I could be hallucinating, but I could be hallucinating everything else so it is no different to me believing that I am typing on my computer, or that I have a physical form, or dimensions of space even exist.
However, let's say you want to prove that a god exists. What is a god? Let's say you define it as "a superhuman being or spirit... [that has] power over nature". That is a definition from the Oxford dictionary. If superhuman means powers that cannot be explained by science, then we are gods to tribal people; we can do things that their science cannot explain. But maybe superhuman means that it can do something that science cannot explain. But what is science? Making predictions and observations "the systematic study of the... world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained". This means that nothing can be "beyond science", since science is the study of reality itself.
So maybe a god is simply the creator of our universe. If this god is non-interventionist, then it makes no difference at all, since believing in them or not has literally no consequences, and so it is useless to consider such a god as they may as well not exist. If this god is interventionist, then we'd want to know in what way. But as soon as we know in what way they are interventionist, they fall into the category of god explained in my third paragraph (Now, let's say you want to prove to me that the Christian God...) and follow the same logic. You cannot prove the idea of a god, but you can prove that a specific one does exist. Well, as much as anything else exists.
Those are my current thoughts on the matter. I hope my way of writing was clear enough. I try to be as objective as possible, but I am just another atheistic liberal, so what would I know lol (a fucking joke, by the way)
Please everyone, the answer is in Romans 1:17-31. Apart from those who are just angry with God, there are those who won't tell us about the evil deeds and lifestyles they justify. These folks hate God because He is inconvenient to them and God has given them over to their reprobate mind becsuse they love their deeds. They are vain. They knew God once. But they rejected Him. I was one of these. Mind you, if they are young God has not yet lost His patience with them. He had mercy on me to get much older... I too have done things when young and cried out to God to rescue me from these evil addictions. Yet, I cannot deny the justice of God all the time, and His rewarding my trust. He doesn't need to show me His face. God bless us all.
This is such a great argument here
Very well articulated and presented video on this issue.
Especially the part were you said most atheists keep assuming theistic arguments are from an unknown phenomenon to God.
That frustrates me a lot.
They consistently fail to understand that classical theistic arguments proceed from known facts about nature to God using deductive reasoning and philosophy.
I don't see that as happening. People engage with the arguments they receive. There are plenty of philophers and philosophically minded atheists who address the classical arguments. But the average theist doesn't present a classical argument. So the average atheist isn't necessarily going to address them.
There are no facts about God only beliefs.
As an atheist, yes, expecting miracles is committing the god of the gaps fallacy.
And no, nothing I can imagine would convince me of god. Something might convince me that the being in the Bible described as God exists (if you show it to me, for example), but I'm not convinced it is God, just as I'm not convinced that Q from Star Trek is God. Super powerful entity ≠ God. Similarly, a kind, loving, fair and moral god wouldn't have to exist for me to worship it. I would be totally unconcerned by its lack of existence.
Atheism makes no "claim" of anything. It's up to theist's to prove their claims. How silly would be for a court of law to require the defendant to prove his innocence? Ridiculous!
This is just a fantastic video through and through. I'm so grateful for outstanding content like this on TH-cam.
Honestly, I also don’t know what it would take to convince me of supernatural things, because at the end of the day the ideas just don’t make sense to me and I find plenty to object to in all the arguments I've ever seen.
I don’t think we can demonstrate minds are immaterial things whatever that would even mean. We also can’t demonstrate existence of minds other than our own and even then it is questionable to talk about demonstration when knowing our minds exists is an immediate individual state of affairs rather than any meaningful reasoning. I’m also not aware of any moral truths existing. Morals seem just stability points connected to our evolutionary history and they are associated with a kind of homeostasis with our environment. Very much a material state of affairs. Numbers then again I don’t think exist as such, rather they are just names given by humans to particular aspects of the process by which information is handled by this universe.
I believe in expectation values, strategies I discover and by which I can expect to be able to play the game better than otherwise. I’m not sure I believe in anything else at the end of the day really.
I find it unlikely the universe came from nothing or came at all in any meaningful way, more likely it’s just misguided human taste for causes and reasons when it comes to fundamental existence which may not have anything like that at all. We know of only one state of affairs evolving into another state of affairs in this cosmos of ours. Generalising from that doesn't really get you very far and perhaps there is nowhere to get to.
"I find it unlikely the universe came from nothing or came at all in any meaningful way, more likely it’s just misguided human taste for causes and reasons... we know of only one state of affairs evolving to another state of affairs."
Well, that is Aristotelian Formal Causation then, which is fundamental to understanding causation. Explanations and causes aren't just "human tastes". There's a reason why when a set of particles (such as 2 Hydrogen atoms and 1 Oxygen atom) form, that every single time they form a water molecule. Never do they wind up being something different, it literally never changes, nor evolves. They are true to "form" of their essence, every single time. It literally never changes. The very essence of what they are causes them to be a water molecule every time, never a petroleum molecule or aluminum oxide. Acorns always wind up forming into something that is within the realm of their essence (even if it's badly mutilated), it will be some sort of plant, never a rock or a bird. This is formal causation.
Cause and effect, and explanations, are absolutely provable, and absolute fundamental metaphysical reality. They are as provable as 1+1=2, every single time, and if true, God exists. Denial of cause and effect, and that things have explanations, to me is like denying 1+1=2.
This sort of argument sounds like Sean Carroll or someone.
@@thegreatcornholio7255 Generally speaking there is essentially nothing to prove in "1+1=2". Conceptually it's an arbitrary definition made by humans for practical reasons and physically it refers to trivial state of affairs.
"Cause and effect, and explanations, are absolutely provable, and absolute fundamental metaphysical reality."
As exemplified by Münchhausen trilemma, nothing is absolutely provable or at the very least humans don't currently have any grasp of such matters. If you think otherwise, I'm confident you have failed to understand the essentials of logic.
"There's a reason why when a set of particles (such as 2 Hydrogen atoms and 1 Oxygen atom) form, that every single time they form a water molecule."
To be exact H2 and O atoms don't necessarily form water molecule and are quite happy to exist among themselves as separate atoms in large quantities as well. They form water when set on fire, but they don't need to burn otherwise. I'd also like to stress that in nature there are a great many often unlikely ways things can evolve and in a large set of things many of these unlikely ways happen all the time. Even particles aren't any unambiguous things when looking at the scale of quantum fields. However, that's probably not the point you tried to get across so I'll respect the principle of charity and ignore this particular issue.
Never the less getting back to your point, how would you in general know there is a reason for the arbitrary state of affairs in nature? What would that reason be, how would it work, what would be the reason for that reason? Generally speaking following back the route of how nature evolves from one state of affairs to another does not seem to allow humans to reach any meaningful and unambiguous conclusion to such questions so it seems humans know nothing of such things. Humans simply observe the current state of affairs and how they evolve. Physics is only descriptive, it makes simplifications to build models based on those observations and then people use those models to make pragmatic predictions to play the game of expectation values so to speak. These explanations are fundamentally only useful fiction since we can't verify their correspondence to absolute truth. At no point do we reach a thing like first cause for anything. We only see evolution of state. Luckily that doesn't matter, we can still play the game, but it really does seem to be all we know and do. Observation is not a proof, it can act as a demonstration that may or may not support expected usefulness of a particular model. Only in mathematics and logic are things proven in a more strict sense and even then the proofs only tell that from assumptions a certain set of conclusions follow, but the assumption are still uncertain and ultimately the provability of formal axiomatic theories is quite limited as demonstrated by Gödel's incompleteness theorems and of course in the end in more general sense due to observations like Münchhausen trilemma.
@@derre98
Well, I guess I'll respond, but the point is that when you said that humans want to assign causes, and explanations to things; it is for a very good reason. It's because everything has causes and explanations. That's what things like science are about and just assume (unless you're into modern scientism, atheist stuff, then you rely on the principle right up until the point it disproves your atheist world view and then dump it).
"speaking there is essentially nothing to prove in "1+1=2"."
-In mathematics in logic, we have what are called "mathematical proofs" and "logical proofs".
" Conceptually it's an arbitrary definition made by humans for practical reasons and physically it refers to trivial state of affairs. "
-This means you are in the nominalist view of philosophy, which most mathemticians and the greatest mathematical physicists on earth like Penrose, Vilenkin and others, disagree. However, I agree with you, but either way, descriptive or real, never do mathematical laws change, and never is 1+1=8 for example.
" If you think otherwise, I'm confident you have failed to understand the essentials of logic. "
-I don't thinks so.
"To be exact H2 and O atoms don't necessarily form water molecule and are quite happy to exist among themselves as separate atoms in large quantities as well. "
-Yes, that's correct, and Aristotle, and every aristotilean, thomist and whomever came after, explains that in detail. These are called "potentials" and for some reason every substance must adhere to a set of potentials. H20 combined has the potential for water, and maybe some other potentials by themselves (as you exaplaiend). But the point is, when H2 and O are combined, they MUST be the actualization of some potential, according to their form. Threre are zero times, when a H20 combine in large enough numbers, and it forms into a goat, or into oil. That fact never evolves, it never changes. It forms into water, or one of it's other potentials, every single time. This is a formal cause. All the science stuff you explained about H and O, I'll take your word for it, but that's simply not important. The point is, this is true of everything that exists that can change, it has a set of potentials, and it when it changes, it will always actualize into one of those potentials. This is Formal Cause.
"I'd also like to stress that in nature there are a great many often unlikely ways things can evolve and in a large set of things many of these unlikely ways happen all the time."
-Never outside of their potentials. It could be that it changes to *something else* that has new potentials, but it, in and of itself, will never change to something that is beyond the potentials of its essence.
"What would that reason be, how would it work, what would be the reason for that reason? Generally speaking following back the route of how nature evolves from one state of affairs to another does not seem to allow humans to reach any meaningful and unambiguous conclusion to such questions so it seems humans know nothing of such things. Humans simply observe the current state of affairs and how they evolve."
-Ok... Well, that's empericism. I'm not a strict Empericist, but that's how humans know most things. And there's other epistemological modes. How we form things like "proofs" in mathematics. We can prove them conceptually, then we can see that they are applicable to real events in nature. This is what Kant referred to as "synthetic" reasoning. We can take logical constructs, and verify them in the material world, as though immaterial abstract reality has some magical connection to the material world, and the material world must obey them. And in science "theories", and the conclusions are often very unambiguous, and very clear. In the real world, we have many experiential reasons to have beliefs (like I'm sitting in a chair right now typing and that I exist). All of these seem very reliable, and there are very good reasons to believe that they are true. There's certainly more reasons to believe that they are true, than the negation which just seems to be pure skepticism, intellectual nihilism.
"Physics is only descriptive, it makes simplifications to build models based on those observations and then people use those models to make pragmatic predictions to play the game of expectation values so to speak. "
-See Nominalism above. I agree, but this does nothign to disprove, or bring doubt to cause and effect, and explanations (aka The Principle of Sufficient Reason).
"These explanations are fundamentally only useful fiction since we can't verify their correspondence to absolute truth. At no point do we reach a thing like first cause for anything."
-"fiction"? That's a huge assertion, which you certainly haven't given any reasons to support. Well, I think people who believe to the contrary give *very* good reasons. These include people like Aristotle, St Aquinas, Gottfried Leibniz, Kurt Godel, and they explain in detail, why you are wrong about that; and I feel they are extremely convincing. If you feel there is no "first cause" of anything, you need to bgive reasons you believe some of the assertions you have been making (with no supporting reasons so far, just assertion, just as people like Carroll who I mentioned and other scientism atheists). Understanding cause and effect (including formal cause) IS the purpose of the scientific method, and other areas of epistemology. If you think it doesn't exist, or it's "fiction" or at some point it just quits being true, then I think you need to be able to explain when it stops being true, and how you came to know that.
I'm just being honest here, usually when I hear people make these sort of grand assertions, about cause and effect being "fiction", or that they've upended all of human reason, so they can now support a meaningless universe that "just exists, without explanation", it's always just that, a grand assertion, with very few reasons given.
Can you give a single example of something that changes, and scientists think there's no reason as to why, or where they've decided there'll be no explanation? I challenge you to find *anything*, apart from mutli-verses, "quantum soup universes" or something else that helps them support their atheism? A SINGLE thing that isn't needed to support their atheism, that they say "there need not be an explanation for that, it's a 'fiction' that everything must have some cause or explanation". As William Lane Craig points out, this is a gross example of Special Pleading.
Anyhow, thanks for sharing your points. Most of my questions are rehetorical, because I may not have time to keep reading responding (bc of my work requirements).
@@thegreatcornholio7255 "The point is, this is true of everything that exists that can change, it has a set of potentials, and it when it changes, it will always actualize into one of those potentials."
It seems circular or down right void of meaning to say "things do what we observe them to do" or at least that's what I hear you saying there. Yes, obviously, that's just using words to say nothing. We all know this, it's a trivial tautology.
"And in science "theories", and the conclusions are often very unambiguous, and very clear."
As a physicist (my day job) I would disagree in a sense that all theories are just approximate models built upon limited statistics, a set of useful fiction waiting for a better theory to arrive upon better statistics. The word fiction is of course there to highlight the uncertainty associated with all existing models, theories and knowledge, not to say that nothing matters, in fact a good theory has predictive power and predictive power is valuable to humans and thus matters to them in the time they live.
"There's certainly more reasons to believe that they are true, than the negation which just seems to be pure skepticism, intellectual nihilism."
Certainly, most models built upon daily observations can be tested and gambled with and this is normal practice everyone does. Same does not apply to first causes, gods and similar concepts and postulates which essential cannot be tested and only exist in a category of unnecessary ones let alone if they are nonsensical in some ways.
"...this does nothign to disprove, or bring doubt to cause and effect"
Principle of sufficient reason is in my opinion very bad example as we have no experience of any first causes whatsoever. Therefore we have nothing established to disprove. We only have experience of things evolving from one states of affairs into another states of affairs by "differential rules or differential equations" which we have built as approximate statistical models based on observations.
"If you feel there is no "first cause" of anything, you need to bgive reasons"
In the previous I gave many such reasons. I do not believe in the first cause because there is no reason to postulate such a thing, there exist no statistics and no observations that would benefit from that postulate. Postulating a first cause would explain and predict nothing, quite the opposite. All causes we know of are nothing more than continuous state evolution, rocks rolling down a potentially infinite hill of which we only know of a small finite slice.
There is in general no other reason required not to believe something other than the fact that a postulate proposed by someone has not been justified sufficiently.
"Understanding cause and effect (including formal cause) IS the purpose of the scientific method"
Scientific method has no purpose, it's just a name given to a method we apply to build useful models, it is the best method that accomplishes this and is followed by humans doing science, humans like me. There can be nothing better than science, because whatever is known and whatever works best is science. Theories are constantly updated to match the latest observations. We build rockets that fly to the moon. Success of a theory is ultimately confirmed by success of our devices and the game itself.
"so they can now support a meaningless universe that "just exists, without explanation"
I don't care about such things. I do not know if the universe just exists, if the universe has meaning or what is fundamentally true of nature of existence, but what I do know is that I'm not aware of any rational way a "first cause" could be logically consistent or that universe could have a meaning. Meaning is a subjective human concept to the best of my understanding. The only thing about the universe that is obvious is that it exists, it has a state and that human (at least my consciousness) experiences temporal evolution of state which has included being able to build useful models. Human experience of state evolution may be correlated in a complex manner to the state of the universe and thus it is very difficult to say anything unambiguous about matters such as origin of the universe.
"Can you give a single example of something that changes, and scientists think there's no reason as to why, or where they've decided there'll be no explanation?"
I might as well ask you to give me a single example of something that changes and we know why this change occurs.
As explained earlier, we don't know why change ultimately occurs, we only know how it occurs, so pretty much everything we know of falls into the category you ask. I'm not asserting there is no explanation, there might be or there might no be. Although depends also strongly on what you mean be explanation. Scientific explanation typically means a description, a model, a how, something like a map or a painting corresponding to observations. However, a painting is not a cause, its at best an image of a state. I'm simply saying humans don't know of any why, we only know of how. We know of how things approximately evolve from one state to another because of observations and statistics, not why they evolve, how time evolution started or how the first state came to be if there even was a first state or if it even came to be rather than some other "state of affairs" being the case. We simply lack the understanding and/or imagination for such matters and the alternatives proposed by people to these questions are simply nonsensical. It's better to acknowledge what doesn't make sense and what we don't know than to pretend otherwise.
I'm not an authority believer so many of the names you mention don't concern me, but in general William Lane Craig and his arguments don't really get respect from me. I've hear many of them and addressed them in various contexts. I've also personally debated a PhD theologian once, that too didn't impress me very much. The others you mention may get some respect from me depending on the context, but not in ever context, some of them more than others of course, Gödel and Carroll more than others. Ideas matter, truth matters, people and especially their beliefs not so much except beliefs in a sense that people should strive to hold as many true beliefs as possible and as few false beliefs as possible. Everyone may have good ideas as well as bad ones, and they do. I think for myself rather than accepting what others have done. If I arrive at the same conclusion as someone famous, cool, if not, that's cool too.
@@derre98 So, it sounds like you think that the fact that H20, when combined, will *never* be oil, and a seed when planted , if it changes, it will either be a plant, or it'll rot, those are its only potentials, and there are zero other options, 100% of the time is a "circular tautology" lol. Ok, fair enough. I should just leave it at that then. It has nothing whatsoever to do with us observing them do something "therefore that's what they do". It's that something is true, and therefore we will observe it, 100% of the time". If you have some principle that is true, then you'd expect that everything adheres to the principle. If you think it is possible for H20, given enough time, may or may not form into oil, then you reject the metaphysical principle. If H20 combines and forms any other things than water, it is because these are one of its potentials, and depending on the the other things acting on it, will actualize one of those potentials. ALL of science just takes Aristotelian causation for granted, and is utterly underpinned by it, and most scientists are utterly oblivious one way or the other, and don't remotely understand it. The only time people try to make exceptions to it is when they're trying to maintain their atheism "cuz science", and then they dump every single principle necessary that underpins their science, and then they start appealing to "patterns" and things without causes, and things they think doesn't require causes, but are completely oblivious to the fact that they are just giving examples of other kinds of Aristotelian causation.
If you think that H20 will NEVER form into oil, then you accept the principle, but you can still try to argue against it til you're blue in the face. Rather you agree with the principle or not, the people who do have VERY good reasons as to why they do. If you want to study the subject further to better understand it, that seems like it'd be a good option, if not, that's ok too, it's easier to be an atheist that way. And really, I will just leave it at that.
I can't speak for other Atheists, but from my perception as an Atheist, I believe that in one form or another, in a natural state of being, the universe always existed ... which completely does away with the concept that the universe was created, or that humans suffer because of sin.
To an Atheist, fearing the existence of a god, would be equivalent to fearing the existence of Santa Claus.
From the book … The Church and Mental Health, Published 1953. Phillips Brooks saw the difference between morality based upon anxiety and that based upon faith.
“Why is it,” a friend once asked Brooks, “that some of these men who call themselves atheists, seem to lead such moral lives?”
“They have to,” replied Brooks. “They have no God to forgive them if they don’t.”
Christianity has many flaws, one of which is how deeply rooted in Paganism it is…
I agree that the answers to the question "what would prove that God exists?" are often bad but half the problem here is that the question is nonsense.
A lawyer doesn't get in front of a jury and ask what would convince them that the defendant is guilty or innocent. They lay out the actual evidence, not ponder made-up evidence the jury wishes existed.
"What would convince you" just forces a person to invent some otherworldly scenario that can't be anything but God, but it doesn't matter because those things aren't happening anyway.
The only sensible answer to "what would convince you?" is "whaddya got?"
Bad analogy. Juries are carefully selected to minimise any possibility of bias for or against the defendant. The vast majority of atheists have a massive emotional bias against the idea of God. Don't believe me? Talk to some.
@wishingwell12345 You missed the point. The point is that the question is basically "right now, on the spot, come up with a fictional scenario that would prove the supernatural." It's completely useless. Whether a juror is biaser or not doesn't matter, all you're doing is testing whether they're able to come up with a cool scenario on the spot. Some will be good at answering the question and some will be bad. But there is no point whatsoever to the question to begin with.
I think that this bias exists because they ultimately do not want Him to exist. They do not simply lack belief, that would make them agnostic. They actively do not want Him to exist, likely because they sense that they would have to change their lives and order them around Him.
They don't want any god to exist, yet for some reason they focus almost exclusively on trying to debunk the Christian conception of God rather than the myriad other deities of polytheism or the Pantheistic God. Occasionally, they make an argument against Allah but that's the only exception I've seen and it's quite rare since most New Atheists are very politically correct and don't want to appear "Islamophobic" by criticizing the Muslim faith.
I came to this conclusion also, when i was Half arsing my beliefs.
Even if jesus came back and sat on the throne, militant atheists would reject him, because it would mean they'd have to accept and obey Christian morality.
Your analogy with David Blane's magic trick is flawed because David Blane does not claim to be a divine being nor a son of a divine being.
I do love to see theists scream when an atheist says “I don’t know”. Why won’t theists accept that?
For me, if a being appears to the entire world (shown in all the news therefore not a hallucination), and demonstrates that it has all the claimed attributes of god (omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence) then I would believe that it exists.
If Thor of Marvel appeared to the world, I would not believe still that he was the claimed god because Thor is neither omniscient nor omnipresent.
So your standard for belief was if everyone believed it and saw it, it’s real?
I don’t know, that just sounds like the ad populism fallacy from people relying on the same God of the Gaps fallacious reasoning. :/
It's a stupid argument, "What would prove to you god exists?" First I'd ask "Which god?" Seeing a Viking tearing across the sky in a chariot with thunderbolts flying from his hammer might convince me that Thor exists.
it shows how very special their special pleading is.
Usually, when you are solving a problem, you solve the first question first "Is there a God?", If you are certain that there's a God then you go to the second problem "Which God is true?", You don't jump around each problem without solving the first objection like it's some kind of Gotcha.
You say that, but I’ve found that the typical atheist conception of God is the bearded man on the Sistine Chapel touching Adam’s finger; the so-called Ancient of Days. They will even refer to him mockingly as ‘sky daddy,’ which is a fascinating, but wholly accidental peek into how limited their conception of God is. They are projecting their conception onto others and saying “we must be talking about the same God, and you just happen to be wrong about that character’s existence.” Listen to Dawkins and tell me he isn’t talking about a bearded man in the sky. The typical atheist’s rightful sparring partner are fundamentalist Christians, because they are talking about the same entity.
I talked like you when I was 14..edgy militant atheism is not cute
@@awsambdaman Cope harder!
An atheist here,
"What would convince me of god?"... Well, two things would have to happen... 1. Theism would have to be represented in the universe in argumentation (every argument for god is not theistic in any way). The thing is is that theism is unnatural in that the only way one would come to know theism (or a specific god) is by example a talking burning bush, disembodied voice, voices/words in head, apparitions, scripture, prophets, divine dreams etc... etc... These things are all unnatural revelations, theism is NOT able to get itself out of that box as no natural revelations exist. Theism requires the unnatural to be known! If no natural revelation exist in that no theistic argumentation is present then theism cannot EVER be rational. For example, if I saw a talking burning bush, it would be impossible to deny what was happening in front of me, however, there would be NO WAY, under the laws of logic, that it would ever be rational or coherent understanding in belief or knowledge. It would then mean that god put me in an irrational position regarding rationality and coherence in logic, simply because the universe HE designed is not pro theistic in nature (that would be god's fault theism isnt rationally possible). Any time type of natural revelations at best would be deistic but not theistic. So theism would have to show itself to be naturally possible in the laws of logic in a universe were theism had natural revelations that are not deistic (since deism and theism are at odds). Apologist, even famous ones, like to use deistic argumentation to show theism yet deism is closer to atheism in every way (literally no difference between an agnostic deist and an agnostic atheist yet plenty of differences between an agnostic deist and an agnostic theist).
2. The second thing is that Theism would have to prevent presuppositions from being used in arguments for god for theism to be rational. Theism would also have to avoid arguments such as the beginning of the universe argument, or Fine Tuning, or the First Cause arguments since neither the theist or the atheist can correctly justify any stance regarding it. This is why presuppositions are the enemy of rationality. You cannot form a justification from presuppositions other wise it becomes a "god of the gaps" type of argument. Its why atheist correctly dont presuppose a godless universe, they dont have to in order to justify atheism. All they have to do is justify their non belief in order to justify atheism.
Atheist do require a presupposition .It presumes a 3D reality confined to the concept of time/space cause effect is the only reality
@@daviddeida That is false... confining reality into a concept of time and space is not a presupposition only available to atheist. The reason is because no one knows the nature of reality itself or the universe so neither the theist or the atheist is required to presuppose anything about its nature beyond what we know.... It isnt required for atheism to be justified. The only thing an atheist needs to justify in rationality and coherence is not being convinced a god exists. Theist like to presuppose that atheist must presuppose to justify atheism yet they fail to understand that that is bad philosophy and bad epistemology. Saying that atheist must presuppose the nature of the universe to justify atheism is no different than saying that theist must justify the nature of god... They cannot know the nature of god so any presupposition regarding Him would be irrational and unjustified. That is kind of the point about presupposing being used to justify a stance is bad philosophy 101.
@@daviddeida I will give you another example... When theist say that natural revelations of god exists such as the trees, the grass, the sunsets, and all of the earths beauty, show a natural revelation of god... that is wrong as it requires one to presuppose god as a prerequisite to that conclusion. It means that without that presupposing, the "beauty" of the earth does NOT show a natural revelation of god. It would then be in the eyes of the beholder. Its where presupposing leads to irrational/unjustified conclusions. The fact remains that the only way to know theism is by unnatural revelations such as a talking burning bush, disembodied voices, scripture, prophets, divine dreams etc...etc... There are no objectively defined natural revelations of god, only unnatural which is a problem because the grounding of theism in general is rooted in presuppositions that require one to presuppose a presupposition... that is horrible philosophy.
My own sister said Even if God came down from heaven on a cloud that she wouldn't believe!!?? I have learnt now to just pray for her as every time I mention God she gets really upset
I’ve had two atheists tell me, separately, during two different discussions, the only thing they can’t explain is from emotions come.
They said it would be our emotions that would lead them to believe there is a God. It shows they are thinking, and they made a good point.
So then, are they really atheists? Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say they are agnostic?
@@beatlecristian from what I understand agnostic is a subset of atheist, but then people have really varying definitions of atheist and agnostic. Always best to ask what definition they use I guess
@@Enaccul It's not exactly subset of atheists but generally it is more often brought up as such. Think of it this way., if we think of Santa Claus, your can't really prove or disprove his existence, therefore you are agnostic towards him but at the same time you don't have enough evidence that he exist and it sets you to default position of not believing in extraordinary claims, therefore while you can't disprove him (agnostic) you don't believe he exists (atheist).
Same with god, we can't with 100% confidence say he doesn't exist but we believe he doesn't because believing otherwise is irrational. Some religious people think we don't want to believe. No (we don't really bother with it), we are not able to believe even if we wanted to. If i say you to believe that there is floating invisible cup in front of you, i doubt you can force yourself to believe it.
@@ojgfhuebsrnvn2781 Yes very true and well said, I still feel like if someone asked me if I believed in Santa Claus I'd say I didnt believe in him, but that specifically I was maybe agnostic towards him. I like what you said about how because you CANT disprove either God or Santa it makes sense to be agnostic towards the idea. Personally im an igtheist. I dont think the idea of God is a coherent one to begin with, otherwise ya I'd be agnostic probably. (But I consider igtheism also under the umbrella term of atheism kind of like agnosticism) But I know different people hold slightly different definitions and views towards these ideas
did those 2 atheists tell you that you have an imaginary friend??.....they would be right
Hi Trent, just a quick question, why dont atheist or apologetics bring in the lives of the saints in the discussion? Isn't it the lives of the saints presents all the facts, evidence and in some cases witnesses that they need?
The problem is that atheists just dismiss them.
Ancient/medieval miracles-->legends or mass hysteria.
Modern miracles-->mass hysteria.
Healings-->coicidence.
Exorcisms-->misunderstod mental problems.
Also i think most protestants would not want to present Catholic Saints as proof
@@royalsoldierofdrangleic4577 Anecdotes and highly subjective data are not particularly good evidence.
As an atheist, I pretty much agree with everything Trent has said. I don’t think there can be physical evidence that will convince me that god exists being that it’s in his essence that he is supernatural. Logical syllogism would really be the thing I’d need to be convinced. I have just yet to find an argument that is genuinely convincing.
Assuming reasonable is bad, because one mans reasonable is not the same as another mans reasonable. One man can see the intelligence and beauty of nature as reason for the belief in God, while another considers natural law as the reason for everything. IMO if one could prove God's existence, then what merit would faith provide?
they also have plenty of atheism of the gaps. Example 1A being the unobservable and unprovable multi-verse, their only response to the fine tuning argument (which is based on observable evidence)
Actually, not all physicists agree there _is_ fine tuning, and not all philosophers agree would even be a good argument if you could. But I'd agree any multiverse notion that doesn't make any testable predictions is useless other than as a thought experiment or fantasy.
The reason why so-called 'fine tuning' is also useless is because nobody can yet demonstrate the fundamental forces could have been any different. The notion that _if you varied the gravitational constant_ or whatever else, depends on that possibility, of which there is no observable evidence whatsoever.
I'd also argue that nobody knows the effect of varying *all* constants and forces (magnitudes, directions) at the same time - there may be many feasible physical universes that operate on _totally_ different laws altogether. It's too much like cherry picking to say if you varied (only) the gravitational constant in this universe you wouldn't get stars. If they could vary (unproven) then there's no good reason to base your conclusions on changing any one particular change at a time.
'Naturalism of the gaps' is also a silly accusation to level, by the way. As if you'd never heard of induction.
Oh, there are plenty of responses to the fine tuning argument. The first one being that you can't prove that if the universe's "fine tuning" was slightly different, a different form of life couldn't exist in it.
At this point the multiverse concept - actually concepts as there are several different ideas on what could construct a multiverse - is just that - concepts to be explored. No scientist is saying, "Hey, here's a phenomenon. It happens because of the multiverse."
This is an excellent framing of the question. Some of your best apologetics work to date.
I completely agree. Trent really attacked their inconsistent premise.
Your reasoning is clear. So why would you name your channel after a religious council which could only oppose the soteriological truths of the Holy Bible by pronouncing anathemas (curses) on Protestants who taught them?
Whaddo You Meme is pretty funny.
Enjoyed the clip from "The Dillahunty Dodge"
There is the case of the French writer Émile Zola who apparently witnessed a healing miracle in Lourdes, France, of "Marie Lemarchand who was afflicted with three seemingly incurable diseases: an advanced stage of lupus, pulmonary tuberculosis, and leg ulcerations the size of an adult’s hand. Zola describes the girl’s face on the way to Lourdes as being eaten away by the lupus:"(The Crisis Magazine) The Lourdes skeptic still refused to believe in miracles.
As an Agnostic Atheist, let me take a stab at it.
You're right, of course, in that any given physical standard you set runs the risk of just having a natural explanation. I suppose the difference between "guess what is written on the card" and "re-arrange the stars in the sky to form clear and legible words" is mainly one of scale; but I think the fact that the latter contravenes several known laws of physics, whilst the magic trick (obviously) does not is a vital distinction.
For that reason, if you could demonstrably break known laws of physics at will under laboratory conditions, that would certainly help with getting me to believe there was a supernatural dimension, and from that position I might be more open to arguments for the existence of supernatural entities.
The problem with "demonstrating philosophically" is that it is extremely hard to put the argument to bed. All 3 examples Trent listed (existence of other minds, objective moral truths and numbers as abstract objects) have quite long standing philosophical traditions that deny those things exist. I myself am not convinced external, objective moral truths exist; and numbers as abstract entities, I think, exist only in so far as they are instantiated in a mind.
Personally, I have been forced to scrutinize whether I am guilty of a sort of "metaphysical chauvinism" that discounts the existence of metaphysical objects precisely because of their nature as non-physical. So in the name of honest inquiry, I've simply been attempting to do as Matthew 7:7 suggests: "Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you". To date, my attempts to make some form of personal contact with God, Jesus or anything else for that matter have failed; despite asking for and receiving advice on exactly how to go about doing it.
Praying for you! I love that you’re looking for truth as we all should! Don’t give up! I’ve never been an atheist but if I could give you one piece of advice I would suggest learning to pray the scriptural rosary and just pray it for 40 days. It takes about 20 minutes a day.
There is no such thing as an agnostic atheist. Please stop living in a fantasy world with made up words/phrases.
@@raygrasso1612 Sorry to correct you, but as Theist/Atheist is whether or not you believe in a God, and Gnostic/Agnostic comes from "gnosis", meaning "knowledge"; so it means whether or not you think you know one way or the other.
So a Gnostic Atheist would be an atheist who thinks they know beyond a doubt that there is no god, and an Agnostic Atheist doesn't claim to know for sure, but doesn't believe there is a god.
Does this distinction help?
@@joecardone4887 I appreciate the positive response, and I do own a Rosary (I thought it wrong of me to make judgements without trying it); but I've found it hard to both remember what to say and meditate on whichever mystery I'm on at the same time.
I'll keep trying but it normally takes me longer than 20 min to get through it properly without making mistakes! xD
@@EspadaKing777 wrong. Stop repeating this dogmatic nonsense
"What evidence would make it reasonable for someone to believe God exists?"
The same evidence that would make it reasonable to believe any specific thing exists.
My Dad passed away in 2008. If my Dad came back to life on this earth, it would give credibility to the resurrection claim. If my resurrected Dad, who was an Atheist, said "The God of Abraham is responsible for my resurrection," it would give testimony to the claim. If that God then revealed himself to me and explained and adequately reconciled the heinous acts and contradictions of the Bible, I would say I would have no choice but to believe.
The God of Abraham revealed himself, "in person" a number of times in the Bible. Resurrection is in the Bible. I'm not asking for random acts of unexplainable awe.