Atheist Debates - Liar, Lunatic or Lord?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ต.ค. 2024
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C.S. Lewis popularized the trilemma of "liar, lunatic or lord" and Josh McDowell, and others, ran with that in order to firm up a foundation that may seek to exclude other options.
Links:
infidels.org/li...
I'm taking "L" option #5, myself: lycanthrope.
"I am the way, the truth... and the wolf. AWOOOOOOO!"
CHECKMATE THEISTS!!!!
"Who am I to question god?"
I'm someone who exists, unlike god.
How can you be sure you exist?
@@thisis4573 Read Descartes' Meditation I
@@thisis4573 Cogito Ergo Sum.
Who am I to question God? I'm a rational person who has listened to an exhaustive litany of God claims and found none which pass rational scrutiny. I am a rational person who has read six versions of the Bible and found none of them any more credible than a supermarket tabloid.
@@Gwaithmir Just to throw this out there: I know the Bible is the main work being focused on here but it is by far not the only account of God claims.
Really great explanation, I agree that the "well has been poisoned" by Josh McDowell and C.S. Lewis...they knew there was another option available they just did all they could to avoid it due to their own bias towards their own religious beliefs. I am so posting this on my FB wall. Great job Matt!
Matt is such a pleasure to listen to, and makes so much sense. Thanks Matt
If the Old Testament is anything to go by, lunatic just about sums up this God, so it's hardly a surprise that his son would have a few mental issues too Lol
+John Cashin
How about celestial despot?
+BlackEpyon the wholly imagined gods of man's imagination.
Cam Ron
Isn't funny how God always seems to be the "perfect" version of you? Ya know, if triangles had gods, they would each have three sides, just as Thracian gods have blond hair and blue eyes?
BlackEpyon yah, bronze age jewish desert folk... imagined a suffering jew martyr, dying at the hands of the romans occupying the land. Men become legend, legend becomes myth, myth becomes religion. There isn't any Paul Bunyan but damned if people 2000 years ago were told a story about him they'd damned well had liked it enough to repeat it. Pass the story down 100 years by mouth and he'd end up a god who someone's great great grandfather had seen personally. All praise big paul and the divine blue oxen. Don't get me started on the johnny appleseed creation story.
Cam Ron
It's an example of how if you tell a lie often enough, you start to believe it.
I appreciate your politeness, your the kindest and most respectful atheist conversation I've ever watched. Thanks for the food for thought.
I actually fell for the Liar, Lunatic or Lord dilemma myself, thought I didn't realize it at the time. I met a guru, who seemed to have genuine insight and some good ideas. So when without quite saying it explicitly, he made it clear he viewed himself as a living Buddha, I trusted him. But, it turns out someone can have genuine insight, some good ideas, charisma, and be a narcissistic nut ball. Human beings are complicated.
Power corrupts, did you give him power?
You sound gullible.....
Strictly speaking, what do detectives and a psychologists have to say account of Jesus, would they conclude the individual is mentally illed and/or a pathological liar?
But Jesus was not human. You believing in a person does not mean that what you experienced the same thing.
Josh McDowell is completely butchering the argument. C.S. Lewis' original trilemma was a response to a hypothetical non-believer who's committed to believing Jesus was a great moral teacher. But the trilemma doesn't work at all against skeptical atheists who openly criticize the teachings attributed to the Jesus character, or doubt whether there was such a historical figure.
@@subaru4920 wasn't sure what to reply, since I've now come to faith in Christ.
@@YOSUP315 Sorry to hear that.
@@FourthDerivative Don't be. It's awesome relying on Christ and knowing there's profound purpose behind our existence.
@@YOSUP315 we all need our crutches, don’t we
@@matthewsteele5229 illicit substances, weird sexual stuff, video games, etc. Those I'd call crutches. Faith in the right one in this life is more like a prosthetic leg.
But WL Craig says that the empty tomb is a fact. lol
Kiro 6 people often say Craig is stupid, I disagree. I just wish he didn't waste his talent desperately trying to defend the indefensible(the Bible)
+Kiro 6 Craig isn't stupid. He has a master from Leuven university, the most prestigious university in Belgium and one of the best universities worldwide. Stupid people don't earn masters in Leuven. He also knows the flaws in his arguments because he's skilled enough to obfuscate them.
That makes him dishonest, deluded and/or deprived.
+ahouyearno Exactly.
and, I think it's dishonesty, considering he aims to convince rather than aims to reach the truth. He puts personal revelation above all else and has arguments merely to trick people. My favorite example of an argument that he doesn't defend honestly at all is the moral argument. He'll never demonstrate the existence of "objective moral values" and he always merely attacks moral relativism instead. It's an emotional appeal, basically.
ThePharphis All the while ignoring that his gods have drowned all people, including children. Drowning is torture so WLC's god has tortured every innocent child on earth for his own amusement.
He's at least dishonest. For example his response to Carrier's Christ Myth theories is that this research is 100 years outdated ... blatantly ignoring that Carrier is alive and well, publishing conclusions today.
+ahouyearno that's fair, but he displays behaviors of someone with high functioning Asperger's.
Finally! Welcome back Matt.
Not to mention that being wrong about something, or lying about something, doesn't make someone evil or worthless, or ALWAYS lying or ALWAYS crazy.
+Tareltonlives
That is not necessarily true. In the context of God or the perfect, the contrast between the two is clearly apparent. One is perfect and the other one is not. So in that context once a sinner ALWAYS a sinner unless repentance and forgiveness be in place.
But that's starting from the assumption of Jesus is perfect, which assuming the Lord identity, which is exactly what CS Lewis does
+Tareltonlives
Yes, and according to the Bible that is the best solution to reach.
LOL Ah, circular logic
+Tareltonlives
Are you saying that I can use any historical document EXCEPT the bible to prove anything the Bible says?
Awesome breakdown. All these in the series are great. Should do a shorter version of you and Tracy discussing martyrs, I think episode 623 or thereabouts. I rewatch that one a couple times a year.
I just finished watching Steve Shives' 'An Atheist Reads' series covering that book, Evidence that demands a Verdict.
What a godawful book, but an awesome series. I recommend Shives' channel generally and his chapter by chapter coverage of apologetics books in particular.
+Joe Arnold it is illogical to claim who is God w/o knowing him. observe reality and what Bible says God is, u will know the same God of the nature matches the God of the Bible
+THIS IS BRAVA No. Each person who believes in God believes something different. How can that be? Everyone who believes would agree if they actually knew God. And don't come back with "but they aren't real Christians" because therein lies the beauty of the true Scottsman fallacy.
+Joe Arnold
You're right. That's a great series. In fact, I watched most of them twice.
My problem with actually reading Christian apologetics myself is that I typically want to stop the author after the first page or so and say, "Wait a minute! That's not right."
Unfortunately, I can't do that, so the author continues to base his argument on a complete fallacy (in my opinion, at least). Steve Shives points out those things. It's great.
+THIS IS BRAVA Nonsense. The buybull refers to a dome over the earth and a sun that orbits the earth and physically rises and sets, amongst other unmitigated bullshit. Observations of *reality* reveal a *natural world* utterly absent of that blood-thirsty gawwd you claim to "know".
Ted Soto
people who follow God and forget about themselves have the same point of view by God, but those who commit self idolatry tend to keep what they want,
One of your best, Matt. You're getting so good, mate.
43Alley did an excellent video covering the same topic called " The Evolution of Jesus in the Bible" which covers how the stories of Jesus grew more and more mythological as time passed.
I’ve really enjoyed the nicer, kinder, more patient Matt these past several years now. Great presentation.
You're Right. Matt seems mellow fellow,LAYYYed Back.
Maybe it's because I wasn't raised as a Christian but when I first heard the liar, lunatic, lord concept I honestly thought it was a joke. I think the question is so absurd as to not even require a response. It's also an irrelevant question because it can't accurately be answered based on the available evidence.
When I began my graduate studies in history, the very first book assigned was E.H. Carr's What Is History? which explains, as the title suggests, how we know what is history. The entire purpose of the first course was to train us on how to evaluate sources and historical evidence and based on the methods historians use I'm utterly baffled at how a single one can conclude that Jesus existed. The evidence just isn't there and if it was anyone else, this wouldn't even be a question.
+Ed Gloss
It never struck me as being remotely reasonable. I was shocked when I first started hearing it, and didn't at all take it seriously. It's hard to imagine anyone being able to, let alone finding it compelling or even merely convincing.
And I find no reasonable evidence to suppose the Jesus character referred to in the bible ever existed. I'm tending to go with the mythicists more and more these days. The secular biblical scholars who suppose he did exist, such as Ehrman seem to be ridiculously thin on facts and actual evidence to support a real person did exist.
I'm looking forward to the upcoming Bart Ehrman and Bob Price debate this year. Lets see if Bart has anything of substance historically to bring to bear. But I would imagine if he did, he already would have done so.
+Ed Gloss I am not sure why Dillahunty is encouraging discussing the options of the argument when all a skeptic needs to do reasonably is just dismiss it on the grounds that Jesus hasn't been demonstrated to exist. Dillahunty's approach here seems to be giving too much credibility to historical Jesus claims that have yet to be confirmed by actual scientific means.
+Yaro Kasear everyone doesn't understand what you understand....and you don't seem to understand that your position isn't likely to convince believers that they're wrong.
I see.
Word
THis deserves 5 stars. Such a great video. Thanks, Matt.
JESUS666 as LUCIFER666 satan man of sin son of perdition=RESSURECTED in las vegas. The blasphemy of JESUS Christ Jesus has keys to death & hades hes satan king of hell
There is a fourth L that CS Lewis conveniently forgot to mention: Legend. Jesus Christ might even have been a real person, but his life, miracles, etc. were either exaggerated or downright fabricated by a wide range of people over time.
+joavim
Personally I see it as either ridiculously amateurish or remis, OR more likely intentional dishonesty to leave that fourth frankly rather obvious option out. How on earth does Legend not occur to someone supposedly seriously thinking about and hashing this subject out. It kind of beggars belief.
But it really wouldn't be the first or last example of sheer dishonesty would it. Apologetics apparently is very much built on a foundation of dishonesty.
did you just not watch the video?
+Matt Dillahunty Yeah I plead guilty. I posted my comment before watching the video. I thought I'd gotten away with it until you got to the last freaking word in the video!
+joavim The court of TH-cam accepts your guilty plea on a charge of "commenting before viewing", this time you will be let of with a warning however it will be noted on your permanent record. Thank you, that is all
I want to say one thing,even if God exist , athiest aren't ready to accept God and even if HE doesn't exist thiest aren't going to give up on HIM. So lets wait and see what happens after death,if Christianity is true believers will escape, if athiesm is true ,everything is finished.
The existence of God cannot be explained through our worldly wisdom,it is different category.
You have seen only American Christianity, you just go and visit some nations , where people are raising the dead in the name of Christ . Yes faith is blind, but it is a component of love . Eventhough there are many people YHWH chosen Abraham because he had faith. So faith is not delusional it comes from complete humbleness to God .
great video Matt! so concise and well worded- I really enjoyed it and was glued to my phone the whole time-
Nothing like stacking the deck with just the answers you want. Paul
+pauldhoff Yes, religion does tend to do that a lot. Disregards all evidence that disagrees with their holy scriptures and focuses only on the bits that vaguely agree with them.
My brother-in-law gave me a copy of McDowell's book about 15 years ago. I dutifully read the introduction, gave him it back and told him what I thought about it. He hasn't spoken to me from that day to this.
I still can't believe you don't have more than a hundred thousands subscribers. Lots of people are missing out.
Know this that all the Greats in human history where under appreciated in their own time.
JESUS666 as LUCIFER666 satan man of sin son of perdition=RESSURECTED in las vegas. The blasphemy of JESUS Christ
He Deserves ZERO Subscribers For He Is A FOOL
well he has 144k subscribers now :)
@@Dark_Force_Of_Wishes Whosoever says to another “thou fool” is in danger of hellfire. (Matthew 5:22)
Thank you for making these videos!
Love that Bart Ehrman books are in the background too. Ehrman shows quite convincingly that there are numerous significant conflicts in the Bible and this lends itself completely to the “fourth L.”
Can’t believe that some (many even many) people take the three options as some form of fully sound logic....
Thank you for the well spoken piece on this topic
If jesus knew he was god why would he plead with god just before the crucifixion?
"Why have you forsaken me?"
Why would he ask god this if he knew he had to die to save humanity and that he was god?
Because JC stripped Himself of what He was in eternity of His immortality/divinity & glorification down to mortal flesh & blood human! It was His humanity aspect of being mortal at the time that had human emotions, that is why He acted that way, however His will to die on the cross was stronger than the emotions He had of dying as a mortal human! The power & motivation behind His will to die on the cross was "LOVE"!!!!! Why did God love mankind that much? Because mankind is in the "DIRECT" image of God! In the physical aspect of both man & God our dna is 100% the same This dude satan & the angels are in a simular likeness but not a direct image like man is-FYI
Urth-ling in the 47 years I have been a Christian, I have never killed anyone! Neither have I known of any other Christian that has killed an"non-Christian" of any kind! Recently I had an atheist man tell me that Christians put guns to people's heads & force them to become Christian! Again in 47 years I have never did this, nor do I know of another Christian in 47 years that said he/she took a gun & used it or a knife at someone's throat & made them convert! Since you say we are instructed???? Jesus Christ during His life never killed or hurt anyone! True Christian conversion is up to each individual to do it "wilfully"themselves! Forseing a conversion is not true Christianity-FYI!!!!!
Three separate persons in the Trinity, all equal with God. You cannot be equal with God without being God. And he was quoting Psalm 22, a Messianic passage.
Psalm 22 properly understood is the Messiah speaking and also being spoken about.
Mr Afrika173 religious people are retarded man they WANT a afterlife so just in case it is real they will do anything to believe. it's pretty pathetic
Narga Narga I respectfully disagree with your statement that religious people would do anything to believe in afterlife.
There are moments in my life where I wish God didn't exist and seek to act as if it were true. Why? Because I don't want to be accountable for my actions and thoughts both in secret and public. I want to act immorally and not have to answer to anyone ever.
Just look at some of these quotes from atheists and check your motives:
Professor Richard Lewontin, a geneticist (and self-proclaimed Marxist), is certainly one of the world’s leaders in evolutionary biology. He wrote this very revealing comment (the italics were in the original). It illustrates the implicit philosophical bias against Genesis creation-regardless of whether or not the facts support it.
‘Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."
Reference:
Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons (review of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan, 1997), The New York Review, p. 31, 9 January 1997.
Or
“I hope there is no God!”
Thomas Nagel
Author of "Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False" , Professor of Philosophy at New York University.
“I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that. My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about human life, including everything about the human mind …. This is a somewhat ridiculous situation …. [I]t is just as irrational to be influenced in one’s beliefs by the hope that God does not exist as by the hope that God does exist.” 1
Reference:
Nagel, Thomas, The Last Word, pp. 130-131, Oxford University Press, 1997. Dr Nagel (1937- ) is Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University.
Excellent video! Very well spoken. Looks like I have to catch up on other Matt Dillahunty videos now.
Steve Shives also did a great An Atheist Reads on that doorstop of a book.
Leaving aside the historical questions, the main problem I see with the Liar Lunatic or Lord argument is if one is going to be intellectually honest, one cannot limit it to Jesus or to any other historical figure. If one is going to be intellectually honest, one must offer it as a general principle. In this case the principle seems to be, if you encounter someone who seems to be honest and who doesn’t seem to be crazy, if that person tells you they are God, you must believe them, because it is so far-fetched an honest sane person would say they are God unless they actually were God. Put this way, I doubt most Christians would want to adhere to this principle. I doubt most Christians would believe you should accept someone as God in the flesh merely because they say they are, and they appear to be an honest sane person.
Normally, we would be less likely to accept a claim from an individual that is outlandish. But a feature of this argument is it proposes we should accept the claim the individual is God because it is outlandish, because it is so unlikely an honest sane person would say something so extreme, unless the statement were true. There is something obviously wrong here.
Just to say, this is not theoretical. I fell for the Lord or Lunatic argument myself. I met a spiritual teacher who seemed to me to be honest, who seemed to me to have great insight, who I learned a great deal from at first, and who exuded confidence. I trusted him, and when he implicitly claimed to be a perfectly enlightened being that comes along less than once in a generation, who was bringing a spiritual revolution to the world, I believed him. I gave him a decade of my life, before I realized my mistake.
Was this fellow a liar? I don’t believe so. I believe he was sincere. Was he a lunatic? Here I think C.S. Lewis is using a loaded word. If we imagine a “lunatic” as being an individual who would fit in an asylum, babbling wide eyed about being Napoleon or whatever, no, he definitely wasn’t that. I believe he appeared to be as sane as Jesus is described. He functioned in day to day life as a normal person. He said some good things, and I learned things from him. Friends I took to see him didn’t see anything wrong. He was a deeply damaged needy narcissistic individual with an outlandish self-image and a crippling need to support it, but that wasn’t something you’d necessarily know without becoming closely personally involved with him over a significant period of time.
I have no idea if Jesus said the things the bible says he said, and I have no idea if he claimed to be God incarnate. But if he did, if he told people that to love God was to love him, well that sounds like a narcissist to me.
If you’re interested in my former teacher, there’s a documentary on him called “How I Created a Cult,” available via either Amazon Prime or Apple Tv. It requires an additional trial subscription to BBC Select.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, in equal proportion. Honest and sane people may seem uncommon at times, but they are still common enough to not qualify as extraordinary evidence sufficient for a God claim. It sounds like the spiritual teacher you knew got around this by never actually stating his God claim simply and explicitly such that you would immediately recognize the improbability of it. Instead, you both agreed (perhaps unconsciously) to be the inspiring mentor and eager protege that the other one wanted to find, without thinking too critically about it until much later (at least in your case). This seeing only what you want to see is one of religion's defining traits.
And I'm not being disparaging here. I was an evangelical Christian for over ten years and went through much the same thing, in a broadly similar way.
This was useful, and it seems to be the main argument Christians I know use for Jesus' divinity. I've always found it absurd but didn't know quite how to voice it, so this helped.
damn, being able to do these in such large takes without mucking up is pretty impressive
There’s also a 5th L: lemon. Jesus was clearly a lemon. \[🍋]/
Lemon or Lennon?
@@kobayashiMaroo Why not both
@@jollytemplar3670 I'm just a delicious guy . . . and bigger than Jesus ;)
Every Villain Is Lemons
I fuckin' love your vids. Love em!
At least some of the people who knew Jesus best thought he was a lunatic, according to the Bible. "And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself" - Mark 3:21.
Outstanding work Matt.
Christians often grant the bible a special privlege over any other historical claims of divinity and miracles. The same kind of writings that they use to support their own theology are usually rejected out of hand when it comes to other theologies, live or dead. IMO, its special pleading.
+munstrumridcully because Bible is divine, it has the answers for origin, meaning, morality, and destiny.
THIS IS BRAVA in your opinion. Every religion says this about their holy books and/or teachings. Your comment kinda makes my point, you give special weight to Biblical claims than say, claims of the Qur'an, which also claims to be of divine origin, and claims to have all the answers for origin, meaning, morality and destiny.
munstrumridcully
what holy book? Bible is the only one that talks about origin, meaning, morality, and destiny, the others are obvious traceable traditions gur'an is bible old testament with some modification and intention to create new religion
+THIS IS BRAVA
"it has the answers for origin, meaning, morality, and destiny."
But are they the RIGHT answers? A three-year old can give you answers about lots of things, if you don't care whether or not those answers are true. (Note that, when it comes to "origin" - to just pick out one of those - the Bible is demonstrably untrue.)
Do you care if your beliefs are true or not? If so, how do you determine that? What's your mechanism for separating delusion and wishful-thinking from reality? Or don't you care about the truth of your beliefs?
Bill Garthright
so far no one can refute Bible, but science, nature, human experience.. validate it
Right, been saying this for years now. The trilemma of "liar, lunatic or lord" is a "false trilemma". Many Christians always forget the 'Legend' option.
Matt,
1. Liar, Lunatic or Lord? [If based upon the Greek Scriptures.]
• Yes, liar. Because some of the things are factually inaccurate. So in toto, at least lies by omission and/or purposeful deception.
• Yes lunatic. Because some of the things attributed are immoral, if not entirely insane!
• Not Lord. Because his character (simply ask your local Rabbi) is in conflict with the Tora.
2. Liar, Lunatic or Lord? [If based upon not knowing what actually happened, who wrote or witnessed what, or if he was actually real.]
• Does not matter until we know. Any amount of speculation proves noting. It would not even make it to a trial by jury.
yinYangMountain
+yinYangMountain show a lie. lunatic? u deny him and u claim he is the one who is a lunatic? how can u know what is moral if u deny moral giver?
+THIS IS BRAVA
Objective Morality & The Moral Argument Against God
THEIST MORALITY
God is considered, by His very nature, good. [I.e., 1. God’s nature is the grounding for morals and duties. 2. God also exists in a timeless state.]
COUNTER ARGUMENT
It is logically impossible that this type of God [as defined above] can be the grounding or source for objective morality:
1. Now because God is in a timeless state, his nature has always been fixed this way; so,
2. God could have never existed in a state where this was not the case; and,
3. God could never change his nature going forward-due to the nature of timelessness.
• So, it is by pure happenstance that God ended up with this nature-as there are no factors that could have contributed to this state.
In short, it is due strictly to the reality that He finds himself in; and that is the definition of random.
Now whether you believe other realities are real, possible, or hypothetical, we can use them to understand why this morality cannot be objective. If this real or hypothetical other reality has a God in the same circumstance, there is no non-random reason that this God would have the same type of moral nature. Therefore we can conclude that even with this grounding argument, that God’s nature is subject to the happenstance reality that he finds himself in.
This then leads us to the final conclusion: that this God’s grounded morality is subjective and impossible to be objective.
- arbitrary: based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.
- random: made, done, happening, or chosen without method or conscious decision.
- happenstance: a circumstance especially that is due to chance.
- subjective: based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.
- - - - -
Ref. A.F. Ytinamuh’s TH-cam channel for further explanation regarding the concepts of time and change.
yinYangMountain
God is not under morality and u cant put him in the same level as humans, he can redo everything he did and does. morality is what God says so not what u think is right or wrong, he determined for example u can kill animals not humans.
“God is not under morality and u cant put him in the same level as humans, he can redo everything he did and does. morality is what God says so not what u think is right or wrong, he determined for example u can kill animals not humans.”
- So basically an otherwise evil god can be self-defined as moral because what it says is moral is moral?
The God of Eth:
BACKGROUND INTRODUCTION
Most people who believe in God take their belief to be pretty reasonable. “Perhaps God’s existence can’t be conclusively proved”, they’ll say, “but it’s a fairly sensible thing to believe-far more sensible than, say, belief in fairies or Santa Claus.” But are they right?
Christians, Muslims, and Jews believe that God is both all-powerful and all-good. Indeed, God is often characterized as an infinitely loving father. Yet most of the popular arguments for the existence of God allow us to deduce little if anything about his moral character. Take the argument from design, for example. Even if we can show that the universe does show signs of design, what’s the evidence that this creator is all-good?
There is also a well-known argument that, even if the universe was created by an all-powerful being, that being is not all-good. The argument is called the Problem of Evil, and runs roughly as follows: If God is both all-powerful and all-good, why is there so much suffering in the world? Why does God inflict earthquakes, floods, famines and the Black Death upon us? Why was he busy inflicting acute suffering on the animal kingdom for millions of years before we even made an appearance (including the literally unimaginable suffering caused by the several mass extinctions that have repeatedly wiped the majority of species from the face of the earth)? Why does he give children cancer? Why does he make life so grindingly miserable for so many? Why does he arrange for millions of us to end our lives horrendously scarred-in many cases both physically and psychologically crippled-by the world he created for us?
This hardly sounds like the behavior of a supremely compassionate and all-loving father-figure, does it? Surely there’s overwhelming evidence that the universe is not under the control of a limitlessly powerful and benevolent character?
Many find this argument compelling. But of course there are plenty who believe the problem of evil can be dealt with.
How? Religious thinkers have, over the centuries, developed a number of ingenious solutions. Here are four examples:
1. The free will solution: God gave us free will. We are not helpless automata, but free agents capable of make our own choices and acting on them. As a result of God having given us free will, we sometimes choose to do wrong. We start, wars, steal, and so on. So some suffering results from our possessing free will. However, it is still better that we have free will. Free will is a very great good that more than compensates for the suffering it can bring.
2. The “character-building” solution: We know that a bad experience can sometimes make us stronger. We can learn, be enriched, through suffering. For example, people who have suffered a terrible disease sometimes say they gained greatly from it. Similarly, by causing us pain and suffering, God allows us to grow and develop both morally and spiritually. It is only through our experiencing this suffering that we can ultimately become the noble souls God wants us to be.
3. Some goods require evils: Theists often point out that God inevitably had to include quite a bit of suffering in his creation in order that certain important goods could exist. Take, for example, charity and sympathy. Charity is a great virtue. Yet you can only be charitable if there exist others who are needy. Similarly, you can only sympathize with someone whom you perceive to be suffering. Charity and sympathy are so-called “second order” goods that require “first order” evils like neediness and suffering (or at least the appearance of such evils) to exist. It’s argued that these second order goods outweigh the first order evils, which is why God allows the evils to occur.
4. Play the mystery card: Some theists point out that God works in mysterious ways. It’s arrogant of us to suppose that we can understand the mind of an infinitely powerful and wise being. The evil God inflicts upon us is, actually, all for the best. It’s just that we, being mere humans, can’t see how.
Many believe these and other similar moves largely take the sting out of the problem of evil. Some think they deal with the problem altogether. I find them utterly inadequate. The following dialogue is my attempt to convey why.
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT - DEBATE
Welcome to Eth, a modestly-proportioned planet on the far side of our Galaxy. Here, beneath the great marble spires of Eth’s finest university, the debate of the age is taking place. Arrayed on either side of the University’s Great Chamber are Eth’s finest scholars and thinkers. They are here to decide the most controversial and emotive issue dividing the inhabitants of Eth does Evil God exist?
To the right of the Great Chamber are arrayed the believers. To the left sit the Atheists. The public galleries are near to bursting with those waiting to hear the proceedings. At the end of the debate, the audience will vote.
THEIST (the bird-like Professor of Origin) and ATHEIST (the portly Arch-logos-Inquisitor) lead the debate.
ATHEIST: Here, on Eth, many of us believe in Evil God, do we not?
THEIST: Certainly.
ATHEIST: So what is Evil God like?
THEIST: Well, Evil God is all-powerful, of course. Evil God can do anything. He created the entire universe, including every last one of us. Evil God’s awesome power knows no bounds!
A whisper of approval ripples across the believers on the right side of the Great Chamber.
ATHEIST: Let’s agree about that, then. Evil God, if he exists, is omnipotent. But here on Eth, those who believe in Evil God also attribute another property to him, don’t they?
THEIST: Yes. As you know, we also believe that Evil God is all-evil.
ATHEIST: Can you explain what you mean by that?
THEIST: Not only does Evil God’s power know no bounds, neither does he depravity. His cruelty is infinite. His malice without end.
THEIST casts a cool look across the right side of the chamber.
ATHEIST: I see. All powerful. And, all-evil. Now Professor THEIST, do you think that you could briefly explain why you think it’s reasonable to believe in such a being? What grounds can you provide to justify belief in this evil God?
THE UNIVERSE MUST HAVE COME FROM SOMEWHERE
THEIST: Well, I don’t say I can conclusively prove beyond doubt that Evil God exists. But it seems to me that there are at least two rather good reasons for believing in Evil God. First, it seems obvious to me, as it does to many, that the universe must have come from somewhere. Don’t you agree?
ATHEIST: Of course. The scientists assembled here will tell you that there is a perfectly good scientific explanation for the existence of the universe-the Big Expansion. About 13.8 billion years ago an unimaginably violent expansion occurred in which all matter and energy came into existence, and in which space and even time itself began.
THEIST: We’re all familiar with the Big Expansion theory, Professor ATHEIST. But of course, the Big Expansion really only postpones the mystery of why there is anything at all, doesn’t it? For now we need to explain why there was a Big Expansion. Why did the Big Expansion happen? Science can’t explain that, can it? There’s a real mystery here, isn’t there?
ATHEIST: Hmm. Perhaps.
THEIST: The only satisfactory explanation we have for why the universe came into existence in the first place is that Evil God created it. So there’s my first reason to believe in Evil God.
ATHEIST frowns: He’s clearly not buying THEIST’s argument. But he encourages THEIST to continue.
EVIDENCE OF DESIGN
ATHEIST: And your second reason?
THEIST: Take a look around you, at the wonders of the universe; life; conscious beings like ourselves. Do you suppose that all this appeared just by chance? Surely not. The universe shows clear signs of design. And where there’s design, there’s a designer!
ATHEIST: But science can explain life. What about the theory of natural selection? That explains how over millions of years life-forms evolved and developed. It explains how complex life-forms can gradually evolve from even the simplest of bacteria. Science can perfectly well explain life without introducing your supernatural designer.
THEIST: Natural selection can’t explain everything. For example, it can’t explain why the universe was set up to allow natural selection to take place in the first place, can it?
ATHEIST: Hmm. Well, no, it can’t explain that.
THEIST: Did you know that, if the laws governing the universe had been only very slightly different, the universe would not have survived more than a second or two? Either that or it would have quickly dissipated into a thin sterile soup incapable of producing life. For life to emerge and evolve, you need very specific conditions. The universe must be set up in an extremely precise fashion. And of course we know that it was set up in just this way, don’t we!
ATHEIST: I guess so.
THEIST: Now that it should just happen to be set up in just this way by chance is too much to swallow. That would be a fluke of cosmic proportions. It’s much more sensible, surely, to suppose that someone deliberately designed the universe this way, so as to produce life, and ultimately ourselves. That someone is what we call Evil God!
Another warm ripple of approval arose from the right side of the Great Chamber. The assembled academics felt that, so far at least, THEIST was getting the better of the argument.
But ATHEIST was perplexed.
ATHEIST: Very well, let’s suppose the universe does show clear signs of having been designed by an intelligent being.
THEIST: Ah. A convert!
ATHEIST: Not at all. I’m supposing this only for the sake of argument. You still haven’t given me much reason to suppose that this designer is all-evil, have you?
THEIST: But Evil God is, by definition, all-evil.
ATHEIST: But why define Evil God that way? Why not suppose, instead, that Evil God is neither good nor evil? Or why not suppose he is all-good?
THEIST thinks ATHEIST has gone too far.
THEIST: What a bizarre suggestion. It’s obvious our creator is very clearly evil! Take a look around you! Witness the horrendous suffering he inflicts upon us: the floods; the earthquakes; cancer. The vile, rotting stench of Evil God’s creation is overwhelming!
THE PROBLEM OF GOOD
ATHEIST: Yes, our creator may do some evil. But it’s not clear he’s all-evil, is it? It’s certainly not obvious that his wickedness is infinite, that his malice and cruelty know no bounds. You’re deliberately ignoring a famous argument against the existence of Evil God-The Problem of Good.
THEIST: I’m familiar with The Problem of Good-we theologians of Eth have been debating it for centuries. But it’s not fatal to the belief in Evil God.
ATHEIST: Really? Let’s see. The Problem of Good, as you know, is essentially very simple. If the universe was designed by an all-powerful, all-evil God, then why is there so much good in the world?
THEIST: That’s the supposed problem, yes.
ATHEIST: Why, for example, does Evil God allow at least some people to live out happy, contented and fulfilled lives? Why doesn’t he torture them instead? If Evil God is all-powerful, he certainly could torture them, couldn’t he?
THEIST: Well, yes, he could.
ATHEIST: In fact, he could make their lives utterly miserable. And we know that, as he is also supremely evil, he must want them suffering. Yet he gives some people every care and attention. Why? It makes no sense, does it?
THEIST: Perhaps not at first sight, no.
ATHEIST: Here’s another example. Why does Evil God allow us to do good deeds, to help our fellow Ethians? He even allows us to lay down our lives for each other. These selfless actions improve the quality of our lives to no end. So why does Evil God allow them? Why doesn’t he force us to be nasty and do evil, just like him?
THEIST: I grant you that Evil God’s allowing so much noble and selfless behavior might seem like very good evidence that he is not all-evil. But appearances are deceptive.
ATHEIST: Also, if Evil God is absolutely evil, why did he put so much beauty in the world for us to enjoy? Why did he create such sublime sunsets?
THEIST: Good question.
ATHEIST: And why does Evil God give us children, which bring us immeasurable happiness? You see? There are countless ways in which our lives are enriched by Evil God’s creation.
THEIST: But there’s also evil!
ATHEIST: True, there’s evil in the world. But there’s an awful lot of good. Far too much good, in fact, for anyone reasonably to conclude that the universe was created by an all-evil God. Belief in a supremely wicked creator is palpably absurd.
There is much quiet nodding to the left of the Great Chamber. ATHEIST’s argument has struck a chord with the unbelievers. But THEIST thinks ATHEIST’s argument is far from conclusive.
THEIST: Look, I admit that the amount of good in the world might seem to undermine belief in an all-powerful, all-evil God. But actually, we believers can explain why a supremely evil God would allow all these good things to happen.
ATHEIST: By all means, try.
THE FREE-WILL SOLUTION
THEIST: Surely you are familiar with the free-will defense?
ATHEIST: Perhaps you would care to explain it.
THEIST: Very well: Evil God’s malevolence is without end. True, he let’s us do good. He allows us to act selflessly for the betterment of others, for example. But there’s a reason for that.
ATHEIST: What reason?
THEIST: Evil God gave us free will.
ATHEIST: Free will?
THEIST: Yes. Evil God could have made us mere automata that always did the wrong thing. But he didn’t do that. He gave us the freedom to choose how we act.
ATHEIST: Why?
THEIST: By giving us free-will, Evil God actually increased the amount of suffering there is in the world. He made the world far more terrible than it would otherwise have been!
ATHEIST: How?
THEIST: Think about it. Yes, Evil God could have tortured us for all eternity with a red hot poker. But he would have got very bored very quickly. How much more fun for him to mess with our minds-to induce more complex, psychological forms of suffering.
ATHEIST: Psychological suffering?
THEIST: Yes. Take temptation. By giving us free-will, Evil God can be sure we will agonize endlessly about what we should do. For free-will brings with it the exquisite torture of temptation. And then, when we succumb to temptation, we feel guilty. Knowing that, being free, we could have done otherwise, we feel awful about what we have done. We end up torturing ourselves. The exquisitely evil irony of it all!
ATHEIST: Hmm.
THEIST: By giving us free-will Evil God allowed for far deeper and more complex forms of suffering than would otherwise be possible. Special, psychological forms of suffering.
ATHEIST: But what about the good people sometimes do?
THEIST: It’s true that people do sometimes choose to act selflessly and nobly, and that this can produce good. But this good is far outweighed by the additional suffering free-will brings. Just take a look at the world, for goodness sake! It’s a world full of people who not only behave despicably, but also agonize endlessly about what they have done!
THE PROBLEM OF NATURAL GOODS
ATHEIST: But this is ridiculous!
THEIST: Why?
ATHEIST: Well, for a start, this only explains the good that we bring about by acting freely. It doesn’t explain the existence of naturally occurring goods.
THEIST: Such as?
ATHEIST: Well, what about the glories of nature: sublime sunsets, stunning landscapes, the splendor of the heavens? We’re not responsible for these things, are we?
THEIST: No. Evil God is.
ATHEIST: But why would an all-evil God create something that gives us pleasure? Also, why does he give us beautiful children to love? And why does he choose to give some people extraordinary good fortune-health, wealth, and happiness in abundance? Surely the existence of these things provides us with overwhelming evidence that, even if the universe has a creator, he’s not all bad?
THE CHARACTER-DESTROYING SOLUTION
THEIST: You’re mistaken, ATHEIST. Such things are exactly what we should expect if Evil God is supremely evil.
ATHEIST: But why?
THEIST: Some natural beauty is certainly to be expected. If everything was uniformly ugly, we wouldn’t be tormented by the ugliness half as much as if it were laced with some beauty. To truly appreciate the ghastliness of the environment most of us inhabit-a urine stained, concrete and asphalt wasteland peppered with advertising hoardings, drug addicts and dog dirt-we need to be reminded every now and then that things could have been different. Evil God put some natural beauty into the world to make our appreciation of the ugliness and dreariness of day-to-day life all the more acute.
ATHEIST: Hmm. But why would a supremely wicked evil God give us beautiful children to love?
THEIST: Because he knows we’ll spend our entire lives worrying about them. Only a parent can know the depth of torture a child brings.
ATHEIST: Why does he give us healthy young bodies?
THEIST: Well, after 20 or 25 years they slowly and inevitably slide into decay, disease and decrepitude until we end up hopelessly ugly, incontinent and smelling of urine. Then we die, having lived out a short and ultimately meaningless existence. You see, by giving us something, and then snatching it away, our evil creator can make us suffer even more than if we had never had it.
ATHEIST: But then why does Evil God allow some people to live out such contented lives?
THEIST: Of course an evil God is going to bestow upon a few people lavish lifestyles, good health, and immense success. Their happiness is designed to make the suffering of the rest of us even more acute! We’ll be wracked by feelings of envy, jealousy, and failure! Who can be content while they have so much more?
ATHEIST: Oh, honestly!
THEIST: Don’t you see? The world clearly was designed to produce life, to produce conscious beings like ourselves. Why? So that it’s designer can torture us. The world is designed to physically and psychologically crush us, so that we are ultimately overwhelmed by life’s futility and bow out in despair.
ATHEIST is becoming frustrated. Every time he comes up with another piece of evidence that the universe wasn’t designed by a supremely evil deity, THEIST turns out to have yet another ingenious explanation up his sleeve. And yet, thinks ATHEIST, the evidence against the existence of an utterly evil God is overwhelming.
SOME GOODS REQUIRE EVILS
ATHEIST: This is ridiculous. You have an answer for everything!
THEIST: Yes, I do have an answer to all your arguments. So far, you’ve given me not the slightest reason to suppose that the world was not created by a supremely evil being. But if you’re unhappy with my answers, let me try a rather different approach. There are some evils that require goods in order to exist, aren’t there?
ATHEIST: Such as?
THEIST: Take the evil of jealousy. Jealousy requires there be something to be being jealous of. Evil God gave good things to some people so that others would feel jealous. Or take lying. Lying requires that people often tell the truth-otherwise there would be no point in lying because no one would believe you. The evil of dishonesty requires that there be a certain amount of honesty.
ATHEIST: And you think these evils outweigh the goods they depend on?
THEIST: Exactly. Evil God allows some good things into his creation. It’s the price he has to pay for these greater evils.
PLAY THE MYSTERY CARD
ATHEIST: These tricky replies of yours are patently absurd. You can’t seriously maintain that the world you see around you-a world full of natural beauty and laughing children-is really the handiwork of an infinitely evil God?
THEIST: I do maintain that, yes. True, I may not be able to account for every last drop of good in the world. But remember that we are dealing here with the mind of Evil God. Who are you to suppose you can understand the mind of an infinitely intelligent and knowledgeable being? Isn’t it arrogant of you to suppose that you can figure out Evil God’s master plan?
ATHEIST: I’m arrogant?
There’s some subtle nodding from the believers on the right.
THEIST: Yes. Arrogant. Evil God works in mysterious ways. Ultimately, everything really is all for the worst. It’s just that, being mere humans, we can’t always figure out how.
ATHEIST: Oh, really. This is…
THEIST: I think it’s arrogant of you to suppose otherwise-to suppose that you must be able to figure it all out.
THE VERDICT
At the end of the debate, the audience vote. After the deliberation, a spokesperson steps forward with their verdict.
THE VERDICT: It seems to us that THEIST has made a powerful case for supposing the world was created by Evil God. In addition, THEIST has provided a compelling defense of belief in this evil being. He has successfully explained why even an evil God would allow a great deal of good. And so the motion is carried-we are persuaded that Evil God exists.
AFTER THOUGHTS
Are you persuaded by THEIST’s defense of belief in a supremely evil God? Of course not. His explanations are clearly feeble. Surely, despite THEIST’s convoluted maneuverings, belief in a supremely evil God remains palpably absurd.
But of course, THEIST’s defense merely flips round the standard explanations that theists offer in defense of belief in a good God. His attempts to explain what good there is in the world mirror the theist’s attempts to explain the evil. If THEIST’s explanations are deeply inadequate, why aren’t the theist’s explanations? That’s the question the theist needs to answer.
Of course, theists consider belief in an all-evil God to be downright silly. And rightly so: there’s clearly far too much good in the world.
But then here is my challenge to theists. If they consider belief in an evil God downright ridiculous, why on Earth do they suppose that the good God hypothesis is, at the very least, not unreasonable? The onus is surely on them to come up with much better arguments for specifically an all good God.
This is a challenge to agnostics too. If they think agnosticism about an evil God is ridiculous (and I am betting they do), why on Earth do they suppose agnosticism is the rational position to take with respect to the good God hypothesis?
Surely, even if the universe does have a designer/creator, isn’t it patently obvious that this being is neither all-evil, nor all-good?
-Stephen Law (Philosopher / Philosophy Professor)
That closing... that was a powerful way to drive the point home.
Jesus is Lorde.
Ya ya ya...
Excellent as always sir
so c s. Lewis admitted that if jesus were human, then the stuff he said would be so absurd as to lock him away for insanity?
but it's ok because he's all powerful?
that kind of logic scares me. "yeah, what he says is utterly insane, but because he could atomize me with a look, everything he says is good and right!"
What about that dude satan & his cohorts? You atheist mainly do everything to point out "God is really bad" ? This satan who is rebelling against God is definately evil, so in an indirect way you atheist say "both God & satan are both against us humans? We Christians discern the difference between the goodness of God & the evil & darkness of satan!!!!! Quit changing God from good to "He is really evil & ignoring the evil of satan !!!!!!
RonSafreed no, i don't "mainly do everything to point out god is really bad". i mainly do everything so i don't die at less than a quarter of my natural lifespan.
but besides that, you understand i don't think satan is real either? allow me to present this argument in a different context. there's a theory that mario of super mario bros. fame is actually evil. let's put your argument to the test using him.
"We Marioans discern the difference between the goodness of Mario & the evil & darkness of Bowser!!!!! Quit changing Mario from good to "He is really evil & ignoring the evil of Bowser!!!!!!"
now let me ask you this. why is that any more or less absurd than what you said? because it's your text exactly, just with the subjects altered.
now, what my actual point was is this. if you can openly admit that you believe every word that someone says no matter how insane it is because they have power over you, then you are openly admitting to being in a highly abusive relationship. what do we do with people in highly abusive relationships? we take them out of it. C.S. Lewis admitted to being in an abusive relationship, and instead of taking him out of it, _you applaud his abuser._
i don't need to try and make your god look bad, you do it all by yourself.
RonSafreed right, it calls humans gods. your point? and if you wanna talk beauty, how's this?
every atom in your body is older than everything you've ever seen in the sky. you don't need a soul to be immortal, you're already immortal. your pieces will survive and be remade over and over until the universe breathes its last. your particles have been heated and cooled, reforged into new forms by the nuclear hellfire of stars.
and none of that requires me to believe in a magic elf in the sky.
now, let's assume you're correct, that the ancient roman records prove jesus existed (without looking into the research and general agreement of the historical communities, i can't prove you right or wrong, but we'll assume.)
how does that prove god existed?
all it proves is "a person existed, he founded a religion". L. Ron Hubbard also existed, does that mean scientology is correct?
and as for hope, i don't need a security blanket to give me hope because i'm not a child. i don't need someone to praise my every action to make me feel good about myself, because i'm not a child.
Yal an event has been happening in the muslim world going back to the seventies & it is that there are those who have been converting to Christianity because of Jesus Christ coming to them in dreams & visions! Several years ago a friend of mine invited me to hear such a former muslim arab who was then a Christian evangelist & testified of dreams of JC coming to him!
RonSafreed and yet, christianity is shrinking by the month. atheism and islam are the fastest growing groups on earth, and christianity is dying out, slowly.
by 2050, i'd say there'll probably be 60% of the christians currently alive left, simply due to many converting away or dying of old age (baby boomers are on the cusp of death as we speak, and they're the largest group while also being heavily christian).
and besides that, i can say "i saw a dream of the buddha, who came to me and taught me the ways of nirvana! buddhism is the only true path, glory be to the buddha, first of priests and highest of men!" does that make it true?
Hooray!!!
Thanks Matt.
Legend sounds reasonable...
Although, if the [money changer] account were true; then a man constructing a weapon and violently using it against humans and animals(John 2:13-16) in an large area(The Court of the Gentiles) which is no smaller than 2 full sized professional football fields does sound like a lunatic to me. ;O)
Katalyzt
And the best part is that the alliterative concatenation is intact. Indeed, it has been improved.
Liar, lunatic, lord, legend, lucifer. So many options.
+manmadegod100 I say LARP. The whole thing was a transcription of a live roleplaying game that just got way out of hand.
+manmadegod100
My personal pick is Life of Brian.
Yeah, minus the comedy, I think that's pretty much what happened. The area at that time had more messiahs than a discount kennel has fleas, and some random shmuck, smucks, or amalgomated story about shmucks ended up sticking as "the messiah" for pretty much no reason at all.
+manmadegod100 Lucifer the TV show is really good.
liar, lunatic, lord, legend, Lucifer, lizard, Spock
+Ironysandwich
i 100% agree with you on this. the whole 'jesus story' was a laughable series of events that put some poor illiterate in a position of importance [but not important enough to go beyond a few streets] and somehow he was randomly chosen to be crucified.
pure bad luck, wrong guy at the wrong time in the wrong place.
still, always look on the bright side of life...
could be all three.
Interesting talk Matt, but 147 views and 289 likes... What the?!?
it doesn't update in real time. I'm not sure how it actually works, but it happens all the time
Ty seemed weird
NICE JOB, MATT! AS USUAL, YOU HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD!!!
While I do agree with your arguments and conclusions, Matt, there's one aspect of the full argument of C. S. Lewis that gets a bit overlooked, I think. You talked about how we can't exclude the possibility that Jesus was either a lunatic or a liar and I think that's certainly true, but Lewis does kinda concede that, too.
His argument is more that you can't both call Jesus a liar/lunatic and a great moral teacher at the same time. And this is quite disingenuous really on a different level than giving the impression that there are only those three options presented. What Lewis does is prey on the general acceptance that the morality in the New Testament is indeed good and then goes on to attach his flawed conclusion to this.
Still, let's concede that Jesus was indeed a great moral teacher as the argument is directed at those that do actually make that concession. It does not follow then that he can't be a liar, a con-man or simply deluded or that either of those invalidates the actual teachings. Lies are more effective sprinkled with truth. Delusions don't necessarily make you morally incompetent.
You did touch this problem when you mentioned well-meaning-but-deluded religious leaders but I think it's worth pointing out this additional flaw in the argument. Yes, you can call him a liar/lunatic and a great moral teacher at the same time, although I probably wouldn't (although he certainly was influential, so that makes him sort of 'great').
Well considering afaik resurrection is impossible, then even given this trilemma and presuming his existence then lord would have to be the least likely answer. At least the other two are plausible
Well... hole in the ground; deep subject.
Unless you fill it up with narrow options.
Thank you Matt- a fresh cup of coffee and some quiet time with one of your vids are a song to soothe the savage breast of this skeptic.
Quite an interesting collection of books in the background
Excellent lecture! Keep up the good work! :)
Clearly a legend. All other possibilities require more evidence. (Any would be a good start.)
Great presentation ! Thank you Matt.
Good analisis! Step by step with ratio!
The LLL argument squarely belongs in the category of "fallacy of the false alternative".
This fallacy occurs when we fail to consider all the relevant possibilities.
When I first heard lord, liar or lunatic I thought it was an argument against the idea of god. I thought the point was that liar or lunatic are both more likely than lord.
Extra biblical accounts of Jesus would be Tacitus who referred too Jesus execution by pilot and also too early Christian's in Rome. In ad 116.
I had the exact same boxed set growing up!
(But I never quite forgave Lewis for what he did to Susan.)
Last 3 minutes absolutely perfect
ah wow. This c.s. lewis quote was shared with the mormon faithful by leader Jeffry r. holland, who then added to it by saying he feels the exact same way about Joseph Smith.
quite powerful to me at the time.
Oh Matt! "You're no Daisy. You're no Daisy at all!"
"You were just too high strung!"
He coulda' been a 'Lunger'! Duh, Now listen he'e. I am yuh Hyuckleberry!".
-Tombstone. (Val Kilmer)
I don't understand how you don't have more subs
Lewis was much better as a literary scholar, and his fiction can be very good--Till We Have Faces, for example. But he sounds like someone in love with the sound of his own voice when he talks about religion.
(This post contains only *technical* suggestions / OFF TOPIC)
Just an FYI: the letters in an URL are case-sensitive.
You have provided the link in "ALL CAPITALS", which is easier to read and luckily the proper URL was in "all lower" case letters.
However, if one of the letters in that URL was upper case, your viewers would have seen a 404 page.
Please consider providing any URLs in their actual form, otherwise there is no guarantee the URLs will work. Also, why not put the actual link in the description box, too?
For clarification, +Pasxali K is referring to the infidels.org link that appears around the 1:00 mark.
I would recommend the same, putting the link ( infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/) in the description box.
+Pasxali K It was a cut/paste that got altered by the Premiere font manipulation. I'll correct that in the future. Thanks.
Legends are everywhere
Western Storytellers and writers call it the hero christ cycle ,
All cultures have their Legends
+jmm1233
Yeah, and we're not having ANY of 'em.
Disney does get a bit tiresome after awhile
+jmm1233
Things were never the same after Walt died.
The Liar, Luniatic, or Lord thing goes on the idea that a lord can't lie or be a lunatic, but they could. A lord could be a liar.
And the fact that so much of the 'gospel stories' seem exactly like you'd expect out of a play.
Legend, perhaps?
Legend seems very apt, I find the possibility of him existing similar to King Arthur, even if he did exist he certainly was not what he eventually came to be known as.
I'm not super stoked about Matt in the Atheist Experience. Don't get me wrong, he's a fine host but tend to get into arguments and fights with the callers waaaay to often. Sometimes it's the callers fault, sometimes....well, it's Matts fault. That's just the way it goes, I guess that's why It's delightful to watch/ listen to Matt doing these educational videos. Informative, easy going, absolutely great! I'm an agnostic, by the way and the topic of God is a most interesting and important one.
Loving your content Matt.
By any chance do you have a link to the meme that your wife posted that caused the mini conflict between you and Dusty? I was surprised that you didn't present it when you went on the Drunken Peasants
+Pifacedude Seriously? That has nothing to do with this...and I pointed out that the meme wasn't relevant...and we discussed it...and I think Dusty has posted it. Done with that conversation.
I think I found it can I have confirmation that it is this one? twitter.com/TheDPWiki/status/686416800972693505
What’s your opinion on the discovered writings of the Historian Josephus on Jesus, James and John The Baptist ?
It was written a couple of generations after the time of Jesus based on oral tradition, so it is hard to call it conclusive, but it may well be referencing a real person and real events. Not to speak for him, but I believe Matt and many if not most people would take the conclusions of historical consensus at face value. It is generally accepted there was a person that really existed that can be called the historical Jesus, though specifics beyond existence are slippery. This does not preclude that subsequent stories and retellings of his life did not acquire exaggerated and legendary aspects.
What would happen to CS Lewis if he were faced with two or three people making the same claim to be lord? Does he consider Person A to be dishonest, Person B seems a little unhinged, so by default Person C gets to be god? How absurd.
Even if you grant jesus existed, then the strong evidence in deconstructing the gospels from Bart Ehrman's published works (which is conceded by among many biblical scholars) was that he was a failed apocalyptic preacher who preached the end of the world was coming in the lifetime of the people in 33 CE. He was wrong. Many lay theists and fundies would argue that you should interpret the texts differently, but that's how the scholars analyze it, not just me. In that case he was a lunatic/deranged/charismatic cult leader just like modern day doomsday cult leaders or faith healers. There were David Koresh's, Benny Hinn's, Joseph Smith's around then too, but the people living then didn't have any literacy or science to help them be skeptical of these deluded preachers. It's just that the stories survived after him (just like Joseph Smith's story). And after that, it's all LEDGEND. CS Lewis gave short shrift to Liar and Lunatic options and jumped easily and quickly into lord - seems to me. And disregarded other options.
The best thing about "Legend" is that it goes so well with the childish alliterations that christian apologists are so fond of.
The word "Legend" will stick in their head as an option along Liar, Lunatic or Lord. It's a simple, one word response that can't be unheard.
Usually, answering a single apologist lie can take a long time but the (quat)trilemma can be answered with a magic bullet.
This word contains everything: it's not a trilemma, the bible isn't considered a source by non-christians and Jesus might not even be a real person. Legend is the more simple and probable than Lord. No matter how religious you are, something will connect. All packed into a single word.
I've known plenty of people who lied and a number of people who believed really crazy shit. Never met a deity...why the hell would anyone think that was the most reasonable option?
Hey matt, In my recent talks with theists I have been making the argument that "Morality is a result of altruism and not a product of religion." As theists seem to have been focusing largely on the "where does morality come from?" argument.
I have had a decent level of success taking this route, as it is extremely easy to prove that altruism existed for much longer than religion. I have even gained some concession from thiests along the way.
I was hoping to get your opinion on that, as I highly value the opinions of yourself, tracie, jen, and the entire cast of The Atheist Experience.
+MegaKootz morality is a set of laws given by a see all being for humans to live by or it is ideology, it is u say i say, and u cant know why Hitler was wrong because it is just your opinion specially know atheists claim we are animals but they eat animals, did hitler kill humans or animals? morality is not just laws in the Bible but it is obvious implemented in humans consciousness. nothing is older than religion, altruism? do u care about the well-beings of animals and plants u eat? where do u think u know we can eat animals? bible
+THIS IS BRAVA Your premise that morality is a set of laws implies that morals are objective. If you agree that morals are objective please demonstrate it. Demonstrate it without making assertions without evidence.
+THIS IS BRAVA How then did all of those ancient civilizations who never encountered the buybull develop functional legal systems? Or know what to eat for dinner?
Ted Soto
what is subjective is ideology, morality can only be objective,
Kaycee K
no one has a choice when it comes to morality, it was implemented on us, but people can ignore it and create ideology
The greatest evidence for no God is when you are under General Anaesthetic (been under twice). Death will just be like that forever... you just don't wake up again.
Heck, that was also exactly like all history was for me before I became alive.
Life is just a ride. :)
I used to think this was one of the stronger arguments for Christianity until I started learning about the history of Mormonism. I recommend people check out "Naked Mormonism", or John Larsen's "Mormon Expression" podcasts as a good sources. Mormonism seems pretty silly to many Christians but imagine if Joseph Smith lived 2,000 years ago, instead of in mostly literate early 19th century North America. Mormon apologetics would be much easier if the church was left to ignore Joseph Smith's early life (like Jesus) and if they could have redacted the Book of Mormon for 300 years like Christianity did with the New Testament. As it is we know too much about Joseph Smith and Early Mormon history to take it seriously. I suspect the same would be true if Jesus was born in 1805 as well.
Almost everything can be "supported" if one's willing to ONLY look at what agrees with the claim, and the longer and taller the tale the bigger the chances of that happening.
If i just made up a story, any nonsense out of my mind for wich you had no clue about its veracity, i could then "prove" it to you if you allowed the contrary evidence to not enter the equation. And the more information i mixed into the story, the bigger chances i had that at least something matched reality. The location of the story could match a real place, something within my plot could actually match an event that really took place, etc. That wouldn't be any different from Spider-man's comics getting "New York" right, but, as vague as such "evidence" is, it would still make the equation tend to the positive side if no counter-evidence was allowed to enter the equation as well.
And that's what christiany does. A book that big only by amazing odds wouldn't have something in it that matched reality. Places are real and some events actually seem to have been real as well. But that isn't any different from Spider-man's comics. The problem is that christians refuse to weight the bits that do not match (and, oh boy, are there plenty). They hold on to any vague little thing that remotely agrees with the Bible and discard all the nonsense that could (and should) be used as reasons NOT to believe it. So, the reason we are even here now, discussing wether or not Jesus was God, is simply because the counter evidence for the Bible has been discarded time and time again. We shouldn't let apologists talk beyond the very first argument for wich they have no answer, they should stay stuck with it until they showed real proof. Then we wouldn't be here, discussing Jesus's divinity, we would still be waiting for the answer they couldn't give us and enjoying a long deserved rest from their preaching. It's because we give them too many breaks that they can keep pushing their religion on us, making the world dumber along. They do it because we are too permissive as far the demand for proof goes.
The LLL argument assumes Christianity is true on so many levels. Not only does it unquestioningly assume that everything the Bible says is true was correctly remembered, translated, written, copied and interpreted, but the idea that anyone who says "I am God" must be evil requires the whole idea to be true. From an atheist standpoint, while morally questionable, it certainly doesn't put someone at the level of a demon from the deepest pits of hell.
Don't pray to the three gods for me, honesty, world peace; equal justice, knowledge, education, health care, police protection for all; for the gods might become even meaner and angrier than they already are!
There is a 4th *L* and it stands for *Legend*
There could be a fourth option we don't know about.
In summary, it is a false trilema. It assumes that everything in the bible is true, and ignores the possibility of legendary embellishment. That many aspects of Jesus's life appear to be embellished and exaggerated is accepted by the majority of NT scholars.
So yes, Jesus was a normal human being with a charismatic personality, but aspects about his life were embellished to promote a fresh ideology, including the claim that he considered himself "God". It is widely accepted that Jesus believed himself to be the future king of the Jews. After his death, this was reinterpreted as a kingdom in heaven, and his followers continued to believe that he was alive in this supposed heavenly kingdom. Carrying the torch if you will.
Last and foremost, stories about his resurrection are known to be embellished.
Damn this was good 👍🏾
Much of what you go on to say in this video above is frankly - hitting the perverbial nail of the head! I def agree with da,ned near everything u say here, just minus a fewexamles that are assertions that are unprovable either way, but also in a couple - run completely contradictory to the agknowledged the historical data and generalized educated guesses or contextual world in which the man named Jesus either lived or would have existed in cultural context of the sociery iin which he existed and with which those who wrtote the New Testimenty existed within also. This is one of my major criticisms of the modern day agnostic/athheist community, esoecially those dubbed New Atheists, who see religion and faith as somehow something that is in direct conflict withfact-based intellectualism andf that can be convinced of the lack of god or what hae you, through facts and data amd that somehow it's possible to disprove his existence and whether the bible is factually accurate or not and convince belivers of "reality" and lead them further from an intellectually uinfurior ideology and the extremely detrimental imact that these fairty tales in the texts and leads to conflicts due tto these beliefs.
I would agree with the assessment of Jesus as a mercenary or perhaps a lunatic, if he wasn't also purported to perform miracles many of which were healings. This extraordinary aspect of him, is the main reason he was written about in the first place and why C.S. Lewis dismisses those other 2 charges.
With all respect, you'r totaly missing the contexte,lewis argument IS againt people who think Jésus is a great teacher, its right at the begining of the argument...very dishonest
I was raised Jewish and the Rabbi always wondered why they ignored prophet as an option. The conclusion was that it didn't start with the letter L.
+66Snuffleupagus Muslims do think he was a prophet, don't they?
From what I have read yes. But I was just picking at this being a Christian focused argument.
I propose another possibility: entertainment. Perhaps the gospels were written for amusement. If you are a storyteller, are you not constantly looking for new material with which to astound your audience?
False "trichotomy." Why not "Tall Tale?"
If the Jesus story is true, why did God choose to play out these events at that time in history? God knows the future, right? And time means nothing to God (at least the God of the Bible). Why not wait to make yourself known in no uncertain terms in a more scientific age? Anyhow, after listening to Matt speak I wondered what the difference between a myth and legend is. I found the following definition searching Google:
"A legend is presumed to have some basis in historical fact and tends to mention real people or events. Historical fact morphs into a legend when the truth has been exaggerated to the point that real people or events have taken on a romanticized, "larger than life" quality. In contrast, a myth is a type of symbolic storytelling that was never based on fact. Throughout time, myths have sought to explain difficult concepts (such as the origin of the universe) with the help of common story devices, such as personification and allegories."
*****
I think that Gary was only explaining what he was told, not saying that he thinks it is true, too. Regarding the explanation... yes, it's full of holes (such as God can do anything so God could have made any time period the "right time" to present himself), but again, that's separate from Gary. Personally, I was raised in a very secular Jewish home. Religion was never a big thing to me, but as a kid I thought about God a lot. However, being completely ignorant of the Jewish religion, the God I thought about had nothing to really do with Judaism. I was never religious in an observant sort of way. But I was very superstitious until one night I literally told myself that this is crazy and went cold turkey and never looked back. That was probably more than 30 years ago. Fact is, I just didn't know enough as a kid to understand the reasons for and against belief. When I got older and was able to look at religion with more intelligence and weigh the evidence for and against, I came down against. I believe in a natural world, no gods necessary.
*****
Hi Teddy. Long time, no speak. Where you been? How's it going? How's your mom? We should get together after the winter. You still live in the asylum?
Draevon May
I'm not sure if you're replying to me. I didn't say anything about Hell (and don't even think I said anything controversial). If your comment was directed at me, please clarify.
+brigham2250 Perhaps both legend and myth. The bible intermingles the two to the point it's hard to tell them apart. Back then, it was all story, of a sort. They didn't always make the clear distinctions like we do now.
If you've got a new religion, that you want recruits for, that gives you a perfect incentive for lying, or at least for deceiving yourself, and thus others. It might not necessarily be malicious; you might be convinced in your own head that what you are saying is true. That's where the confirmation bias comes in.
This is an old video, but I wanted to comment anyway. Lewis DID address the "Legend" aspect, and he concluded that historical stories which become legends never take hold as fast as the Jesus story did, saying that Legends take hundreds of years to imprint themselves, while Jesus's impact was very quick in history. He also said that the writers of the Gospels would have had to write a metaphorical, historical, legendary story in a realistic style which included many elements of detail which had no relation at all to the "Jesus Legend", but just seem to be dry memory of the events. Also, if the Gospels were Legends, then they were written in a fictional, realistic, "slice of life", metaphorical writing style which would not exist for another 1700 years or so. This doesn't prove you wrong of course, and Lewis goes on more eloquently than I have here, but he didn't dismiss the notion. Your video is very good, and you use one part of your mind at a very high level, but for most of us, "critical thinking" of the available facts, built exclusively around a material view of life and the world, which makes our existence inherently absurd, does not go far enough to give us verdicts. Why are people throughout the world and history so passionate about endlessly creating "legends"? Life and our ultimate desires are absurd, but compared to what? Why does the concept "eternal" exist when literally nothing in the material world is infinite or eternal? Why are our highest ideals doomed to failure, our humanity so deeply flawed, and good intentions inevitably prone to becoming hostile? Why do we chronically dislike ourselves? Why are we looking for something permanent like "home", when it can't exist? Why do we have so many "God Substitutes" embedded in our rituals and human connections and dreams and imagination. Why, as honest thinkers like Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, and many others asked, do we embrace any morality whatsoever? Is love real? What is it? I could go on, but these are things that CS Lewis spoke about at a much more compelling level than this video, which dismisses all of these things. This doesn't prove Lewis and his view of Christianity correct, but this video didn't convince me to throw in the towel either.
Lewis's trilemma argument depends entirely on an assumption that the gospel accounts are reliable, accurate, and complete down to the last detail, including perfect word-for-word recollections of all of Jesus's speeches and conversations. By "complete" I mean that in addition to what we are given being accurate, we are not also missing incidents and conversations that would significantly change our picture of either Jesus's truthfulness or mental health, e.g., erratic behavior symptomatic of mental illness, and so on. Whatever Lewis's data set of legends may have been, this assumption is not justified. To my knowledge, it is nearly universally held among New Testament scholars that the Biblical gospels were written 30-60 years after Jesus's death, by anonymous educated Greek Christians who relied not only on unmentioned verbal accounts passed down through those decades, but also upon each other in the cases of the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John (Mark having been written first).
Knowing this, for the trilemma to work (even apart from Matt's points about Lewis not justifying his elimination of "liar" and "lunatic"), we must make and accept a number of additional unreasonable assumptions:
- that the writer of Mark, thirty years after the fact, acquired stories of Jesus's life which had been kept scrupulously intact and unembellished through thirty years of word-of-mouth transmission by early Christian believers
- that the additions to Mark's gospel later made in the writing of Matthew, Luke, and John were likewise acquired from perfectly accurate recollections which somehow Mark was not privy to. By the time we get to John's gospel, that writer is being given stories and conversations which seemingly took place sixty years earlier.
- that the gospel writers, in spite of being Christians writing not as objective historians but for persuasive purposes, nonetheless made no additions, editions, or embellishments to make Jesus look more like the prophesied Son of God than the facts they were given warranted, not even subconsciously.
These assumptions beggar belief. Recollections from memory are notoriously unreliable even after very short passages of time, and even in modern conditions when care is taken to get someone's rendition of the events leading to a car accident mere hours after it has happened. No scribes are mentioned as having been part of Jesus's entourage, writing down everything he did. The story of Jesus's birth gives blatantly false claims about a Roman census in order to get the Nazareth-born Jesus to Bethlehem so as to fulfill the prophecy which mentions Bethlehem. The resurrection accounts, when compared side-by-side in order of composition (Mark, then Matthew, then Luke, then John) show a clear progression of becoming MORE detailed, complex, and fantastical with each gospel writer's retelling at five-to-ten year intervals. How did each successive gospel writer manage to get better and more detailed information about the encounter at Jesus's tomb than the one before, _against_ the passage of time?
All of this points to the same universal process of exaggeration, embellishment, and smoothing out of legendary tales which we have seen in the stories of Viking heroes, King Arthur, George Washington, Joseph Smith and the origin of the Mormon church, and alien spacecraft being kept hidden at Area 51. It seems very likely that Jesus was a real person who may well have said some of the things attributed to him in the gospels. But we don't have near enough confidence in those accounts to eliminate "legend", or enough data IN those accounts to make the psychological assessment that Lewis makes in a few paragraphs that prompts him to eliminate "liar" and "lunatic". Pointing to other legends taking hundreds of years to become widespread doesn't come close to letting us do this.
@@scotte4765 Thank you for a well thought out response. I don't agree with your general stance however, and I believe you have set up and knocked down a straw man. First, as a side note, it is my opinion that the trilemma argument of C.S. Lewis was originally created only to disarm the atheistic argument that "Jesus was a great teacher, but not God". This argument bothered him, and he felt Jesus did not leave this option open to us, so he came up with the three L argument originally only to shut down the one commonly used atheistic point of "great teacher". Admittedly, this is my opinion, having engrossed myself in the works of C.S. Lewis deeply, and I realize the argument has been extended beyond that by many, but I feel this is how it was meant.
More importantly, again having read Lewis extensively, I do not agree with your assessment of Lewis's opinion of the sanctimonious accuracy and infallibility of the bible itself. This quote from "The Weight of Glory" expressed his biblical view the best, in my opinion: “...if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy."--C.S. Lewis
This is far from your dogmatic viewpoint of his literal biblical stance, and I could quote many passages where Lewis tells us things we may dismiss, or question, or might be impossible to understand, and the greatest aspect of Lewis is that he ALWAYS inclines his readers to follow their heart, emotions, free will, love, rational thought, reason, and his apologetics are virtually never about blindly following dogma, doctrine, and orthodoxy. In my opinion, he asks the right questions, and battles to give real answers, and though you attempted a dismantling of points in Scripture, which is totally fine, I don't think it is relevant in the case of Lewis. In fact, I would agree with you if your point was that many Christians do make false idols of the church and the bible, but to anyone trying to grasp the divine mystery of being, nitpicking historical points in Scripture is reasonable, but unimportant.
Of course I have no problem with your disagreement, and I'm not trying to convince you of anything, but I think your views on C.S. Lewis simply do not agree with mine.
@@coltredwine5963 Thank you for your prompt and thoughtful response. I did not mean to imply that Lewis was a Biblical literalist resembling the creationists of today. I know he was a much more sophisticated thinker than that, as I read everything of his that I could find when I was an evangelical Christian in college, quite a few years ago. My argument is more that you can't eliminate "legend" unless you have a great deal of certainty that the gospel accounts are an extremely complete and accurate picture of the real man. We don't have that certainty, not by a long way.
Just as one possible scenario, let us suppose that Jesus was a real man, an itinerant preacher educated in the Mosaic Law who spoke out against the Pharisees and preached messages of love and compassion, and also of the imminent end of the world by God's hand. It seems quite plausible that such a man might gain a cult following which, as that following grew in subsequent years, came to believe that Jesus was the Messiah and Son of God, and that Jesus's indirect statements implying his own godhood were added to tales about him later, even though he never actually said them or suggested the idea himself. Guess what we have now uncovered: Jesus, the great Teacher, and nothing more. This is the embellishment and smoothing out of legendary figures I was referring to: take someone who seems to mostly represent some ideal you cherish, and in re-telling popular stories about them make them just a bit (or a lot) bigger, edit out their rough spots, and massage their famous sayings and speeches to align more with what YOU want them to represent. The only way to claim that this process didn't happen with Jesus is to insist that the gospels are accurate and complete down to the exact wording of at least some of the things Jesus said. This is an accuracy no one will claim or expect for any other comparable historical figure and there's no justification for it.
Ultimately this isn't about how much of a literalist Lewis was or wasn't. It's about the argument itself, as it is popularly used today. The Trilemma argument on its own merits requires an unreasonable confidence in the gospels' accuracy, for anyone wanting to dismiss "legend" as a fourth option. Look at how readily some Christian believers attempt to co-opt Albert Einstein as a believer in their particular God from one misunderstood quote, when blatant contradictions of this from his own mouth on multiple occasions can be easily found in a five-minute Google search. Making somewhat extraordinary figures into extremely extraordinary ones to support one's own beliefs and desires is such a common occurrence in human history that distortion and exaggeration should probably be assumed about almost any figure's deeds and sayings until concrete evidence proving otherwise has been found.
The cargo cults of the South Pacific seem to be rather clear evidence that legends like this can form very quickly, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Frum. As to the actual reason for why we have morals, they are an evolved trait and not at all limited to humans, you find them among other social animals too. Why do you find them, because they can be objectively shown to be the best strategy in many situations, see the experiments on the iterative prisoners dilemma.
From a Jewish perspective answer "D" could be that he is the "shaliach", the one sent by G-d who comes in the name of G-d (name in Hebraic thinking referring to authority, character, and power), who says what G-d tells him to say, and does what G-d tells him to do. To fit in option "D," he doesn't have to be G-d and he isn't a raving lunatic. He is a tzaddik, righteous one of G-d. He is who a person must attach oneself to for elevation of state as we can't attain perfection without the tzaddik. This is a Jewish, rabbinic concept not a Greek gentile one.