I think you get a much better quality of response when theists are asked to critique arguments for theism, or atheists critique the arguments for atheism. It avoids the obvious problem of confirmation bias!
The only problem I have with God is how he makes the majority of his believers poor and suffer in life. Most third world poor countries are religious, and most of them live miserable lives under corruption, poverty and lack of human rights
ABONESR Hmmm... I think its more that people living in adverse circumstances find solace in religion! Research repeatedly shows that people with a religious belief are psychologically more robust when things go badly. Religion provides a community support network, and transcendent purpose which helps people to cope.
uremove Your view doesn't contradict with mine, and honestly it potientially is the more valid. Answering why most rich people don't need religon rather than why most religious people are poor. Thank you
ABONESR Yes.. except that you put religion as the cause of poverty oppression etc. I’m saying the correlation is due to religion having a beneficial effect in situations of poverty. Otherwise you could equally argue that aid is a cause of poverty!
Guy Fawkes-Day Ooohhh the theodicy thing! IMO as you say, everything is God, so... yes. On the other hand, if I murder someone, I can’t really blame God for it - if you believe I have free will. So, maybe God creates the possibility of evil (and the possibility of good), and a certain degree of freedom in the system, even down at the subatomic level. So... shit happens... all by itself. As beings control their environment more and more, they have greater ability to create heaven or hell for themselves, as well as for other sentient beings. Perhaps that gives us purpose.
I can understand people thinking that there may be some sort of conscious fundament underlying material reality. But the idea that any of the ancient, bizarre fantasy stories (religion) accurately describe what that may be seems completely crazy. It's so obvious that most if not all of the fantastical old folklore is just that: a grain of truth that eventually gets blown up - via endless retelling - into some sort of supernatural fable that can't possibly be true.
Open-minded Skeptic “Dream is the personalized myth, myth the depersonalized dream; both myth and dream are symbolic in the same general way of the dynamics of the psyche.” (Joseph Campbell). The language of religion (and myth) is the language of our deeper unconscious mind, which speaks in symbol, it’s not the linear logic of our conscious mind. So, it is bizarre as you point out, in the way dreams are. Nonetheless, just as Freud found universal psychological truth in the Oedipus myth, so the themes of religion eg. death & resurrection, or Adam & Eve, or Job, hold psychological truths, that effect us, though we may be only dimly aware of them. It’s why Jesus spoke in parables... the meaning is not immediately obvious, but they speak to the deeper layers of the human mind - the “Id” aka the part of us that thinks in symbols.
Yeah, I agree, for the most part. It's just too bad that so many of man's fears/nightmares became myths/dreams represented within the Abrahamic religions. If people were given a legitimate book of love to follow, rather than one that is partially love but largely darkness - anger, vengeance, blood retribution, eternal punishment for finite "transgressions," etc. - I think so many people wouldn't become so screwed up by fundamentalist religion.
Open-minded Skeptic Yes, I agree! The unique innovation of the Israelites and Abrahamic religions was to link religion to morality. Yet the barbarity, tribalism and bloodshed are abhorrent to us now! IMO they reflect the times and the harshness of Bronze Age tribal desert life. Humans then were probably pretty untamed, so to solve the ‘free rider’ problem, Yahweh, functioning as a Leviathan had to be frightening - a vengeful law enforcer. In the desert, there is no room for free riders! It was probably also the case that survival meant ruthlessly wiping out competing enemy tribes. It’s a long way from the later Christian ideal of ‘Agape’ (universal brotherhood/sisterhood), and is just plain dumb of those fundies who want to reinstate Old Testament ethics today! As in all areas of human activity, we continue to make progress in our ethical awareness of others. Even in the cultural record that is the Bible, there is a discernible thread of ‘self transcendence’, from individual self interest, to tribal loyalty to universal human kinship to ethics extended beyond our species. Jonathan Haidt, (who is an atheist) does a very good 15minute TED talk on the topic in “Evolution, Religion and the Ecstasy of Self Transcendence” which is really good on the topic. th-cam.com/video/2MYsx6WArKY/w-d-xo.html
uremove I gather from your comments and replies that you are a "believer" or maybe I should say "follower" of the bible. I saw above where you say that the Abrahamic religions were innovative to connect religion to morality. At the time I am writing this reply I have not yet looked into this in any way but are you saying that other religions or myths DO NOT make any connection to morality? As you wrote and I often hear from believers, the messages come as parables and that is fine as a way to get people to work with each other to coexist. I still do not see why anyone should find the events and characters in the bible to be true. Do you find the characters of the bible to be real? If you were to say yes then I would follow with another question: How is it you DO NOT find characters of other religions/myths/parables to be real? I hope I have not misunderstood anything you state in the comments. I apologize beforehand if I have.
uremove I have not formally nor would I say adequately studied philosophy or theism or any of the ancient mythologies so I admit I am not familiar with Carl Jung or Joseph Campbell. I will look into what they have to say. I think I anyone can recognize that there are 'good messages' or 'truths' in any religion or mythology. But I still do not see how one can find the existence of those that are said to provide the 'messages/truths' to be real. This is where I cannot stand with those that are believers or followers of any religion or belief system. As someone who was raised in the United States I can only fall back to the religions of the bible as an example. Just because there are good messages (believers may prefer I use 'truths') in the bible why should I find Yaweh or the divinity of Jesus to be real? If one finds reason to believe Yaweh is real then I do not see how they do NOT find reason to believe Brahman is real. I am afraid I may not be clearly explaining my thoughts. I apologize if you do not follow what I am saying. In a nutshell, I cannot accept that a god is real simply because there are beneficial teachings in a book.
Many people deny God because they cannot have an explanation from science or solid evidence. But in the face of impending death or the reality that they are going to die they shake they fist and blame God or curse God.
A lot of people accept the fact that they are going to die soon without blame any particular god, you are saying a fallacious argument; and even so all the non-believers do so before their death knowing that they're gonna die, it does not prove that a god exist; as an atheist i don't denial that a god or gods exist, but i don't have evidence to believe that a god or gods exist, the burden of proof is in those who makes the claim that a particular god exist.
@@eliassandoval9530 the evidence of God is all around us. People just don’t want to accept it. Please don’t call or claim yourself to be an atheist and you say you don’t deny the existence of god or god. You just went completely went directly opposite of the meaning of the word atheist. Which is also fallacious.
@@TheG7thcapo atheism is the lack of belief, simple, i don't denial the existence of any god, i'm not convince of their existence; second, what you call "proof around us" is just an assumption, you see everything as a creation, therefore it must has a creator, but you have the burden of proof to demostrate that a creator made everything, otherwise it's just an assumption and a claim. Sorry for spelling errors, english is not my first language.
@@eliassandoval9530 i did not say proof. I said evidence. Two different words. Secondly if we go to the root of the word atheist it means “ without god/gods or to reject the existence of god. Many people claim they are atheist but says i simply lack the belief in god. Then they should call themselves agnostic. Please think again. Have a good day my friend.
@@TheG7thcapo proof and evidence are synonyms, but anyways, what you call "evidence" is not evidence, is just an assumption; and no, an atheist is someone who don't believe in god, in ANY god, that's atheism (whithout god or gods) i'm an atheist - agnostic as well, because i don't believe in any gods but i don't claim to have evidence that confirms the non-existence of any god; at the end, those who claims that a god exist are who must proves that this god exist.
alex seeioo - Exactly. I don't believe in god, but I don't know it doesn't exist (I'm pretty sure, but not absolutely sure). How someone can think they know god exists seems thoroughly arrogant and self-righteous.
@@seany8751 We and everyone else with normal vision can see the sun shining, so that's not arrogant. Claiming you see something unverifiable is delusional and self-righteousness.
@@alankoslowski9473 perhaps if we had clear vision God would be as clear as the sun? perhaps it's arrogant to claim something cannot be know just because we do not know it. Maybe people are deluded and self righteous in thinking God cannot be known.
“Is God willing to stop evil but unable? Then he is not almighty. Is he able but unwilling? Then he is unkind. Is he both able and willing? Then where does evil come from? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” -Attributed to Epicurus _The word ‘God’ is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions._ -Albert Einstein, in letter written to Jewish philosopher Eric Gutkind, January 1954 (a year before Einstein's death) *Fear* of death makes us cling to religion and holy books; that fear creates (1) God, (2) the terror of being nothing, and (3) the many spiritual vampires and exploiters throughout millennia that suck the money and the energy out of gullible people. How gullible are we human beings! The self creates fear. The end of the self brings *total freedom.* Waiting for all living beings when they die is something utterly impersonal: the unknowable, *nothingness.* 💕 ☮ 🌎
totalFreedom45 Your name is an oxymoron. You cannot be an Atheist and believe in free will. According to Richard Dawkins, free will is non-existent. You should change your account name to "slave to another neuron".
@@G8rfan61 I'm not exactly sure how you equate a non-created universe and a hardwired brain with free will. I, my Nephew, and Mom all saw my Dad separately before each of us knew he died. But back to the point. I'm a spiritual person. Saying you believe in free will would be like me saying I don't believe in Heaven... I'm happy that you choose not to have such a soul-crushing outlook on things, but Richard Dawkins, among other atheists, would disagree with you on free will,
All I've seen Francis do here is reiterate to Robert what he himself said in the first place - that all the current arguments we have for the existence of god are fallacious in some way. I'd like to see a further video of Francis saying why he DOES believe ... but then again, I'm sure he just cites "personal experience," which is not an argument at all. Anyway, I still appreciate and will never forget how Francis tried to help Hitchens when he had cancer, and I respect him as a person. But as for his beliefs ... just another irrational argument.
Hey….Atheists…. If a wooden chair could tell who was the Carpenter that built it…. Then human can tell who was it’s creator.. But there is a Carpenter and there is a Creator. Human in past 7000 years has just slightly starting to learn about it.
I think you get a much better quality of response when theists are asked to critique arguments for theism, or atheists critique the arguments for atheism. It avoids the obvious problem of confirmation bias!
Would love to see a debate between Francis Collins and Sean B Carroll.
I think Kaku has the best answer and that is "we don't know."
The only problem I have with God is how he makes the majority of his believers poor and suffer in life. Most third world poor countries are religious, and most of them live miserable lives under corruption, poverty and lack of human rights
ABONESR Hmmm... I think its more that people living in adverse circumstances find solace in religion! Research repeatedly shows that people with a religious belief are psychologically more robust when things go badly. Religion provides a community support network, and transcendent purpose which helps people to cope.
uremove Your view doesn't contradict with mine, and honestly it potientially is the more valid. Answering why most rich people don't need religon rather than why most religious people are poor. Thank you
ABONESR Yes.. except that you put religion as the cause of poverty oppression etc. I’m saying the correlation is due to religion having a beneficial effect in situations of poverty.
Otherwise you could equally argue that aid is a cause of poverty!
Guy Fawkes-Day Ooohhh the theodicy thing! IMO as you say, everything is God, so... yes. On the other hand, if I murder someone, I can’t really blame God for it - if you believe I have free will. So, maybe God creates the possibility of evil (and the possibility of good), and a certain degree of freedom in the system, even down at the subatomic level. So... shit happens... all by itself. As beings control their environment more and more, they have greater ability to create heaven or hell for themselves, as well as for other sentient beings. Perhaps that gives us purpose.
Guy Fawkes-Day Insanity is the price we pay for complex cognition.
probably the most honest christian lol
You know all of them? And the "lol" at the end of your sentence means that you are not a very complicated person.
I can understand people thinking that there may be some sort of conscious fundament underlying material reality. But the idea that any of the ancient, bizarre fantasy stories (religion) accurately describe what that may be seems completely crazy. It's so obvious that most if not all of the fantastical old folklore is just that: a grain of truth that eventually gets blown up - via endless retelling - into some sort of supernatural fable that can't possibly be true.
Open-minded Skeptic “Dream is the personalized myth, myth the depersonalized dream; both myth and dream are symbolic in the same general way of the dynamics of the psyche.” (Joseph Campbell). The language of religion (and myth) is the language of our deeper unconscious mind, which speaks in symbol, it’s not the linear logic of our conscious mind. So, it is bizarre as you point out, in the way dreams are. Nonetheless, just as Freud found universal psychological truth in the Oedipus myth, so the themes of religion eg. death & resurrection, or Adam & Eve, or Job, hold psychological truths, that effect us, though we may be only dimly aware of them. It’s why Jesus spoke in parables... the meaning is not immediately obvious, but they speak to the deeper layers of the human mind - the “Id” aka the part of us that thinks in symbols.
Yeah, I agree, for the most part. It's just too bad that so many of man's fears/nightmares became myths/dreams represented within the Abrahamic religions. If people were given a legitimate book of love to follow, rather than one that is partially love but largely darkness - anger, vengeance, blood retribution, eternal punishment for finite "transgressions," etc. - I think so many people wouldn't become so screwed up by fundamentalist religion.
Open-minded Skeptic Yes, I agree! The unique innovation of the Israelites and Abrahamic religions was to link religion to morality. Yet the barbarity, tribalism and bloodshed are abhorrent to us now! IMO they reflect the times and the harshness of Bronze Age tribal desert life. Humans then were probably pretty untamed, so to solve the ‘free rider’ problem, Yahweh, functioning as a Leviathan had to be frightening - a vengeful law enforcer. In the desert, there is no room for free riders! It was probably also the case that survival meant ruthlessly wiping out competing enemy tribes. It’s a long way from the later Christian ideal of ‘Agape’ (universal brotherhood/sisterhood), and is just plain dumb of those fundies who want to reinstate Old Testament ethics today!
As in all areas of human activity, we continue to make progress in our ethical awareness of others. Even in the cultural record that is the Bible, there is a discernible thread of ‘self transcendence’, from individual self interest, to tribal loyalty to universal human kinship to ethics extended beyond our species.
Jonathan Haidt, (who is an atheist) does a very good 15minute TED talk on the topic in “Evolution, Religion and the Ecstasy of Self Transcendence” which is really good on the topic. th-cam.com/video/2MYsx6WArKY/w-d-xo.html
uremove
I gather from your comments and replies that you are a "believer" or maybe I should say "follower" of the bible. I saw above where you say that the Abrahamic religions were innovative to connect religion to morality. At the time I am writing this reply I have not yet looked into this in any way but are you saying that other religions or myths DO NOT make any connection to morality? As you wrote and I often hear from believers, the messages come as parables and that is fine as a way to get people to work with each other to coexist. I still do not see why anyone should find the events and characters in the bible to be true. Do you find the characters of the bible to be real? If you were to say yes then I would follow with another question: How is it you DO NOT find characters of other religions/myths/parables to be real?
I hope I have not misunderstood anything you state in the comments. I apologize beforehand if I have.
uremove
I have not formally nor would I say adequately studied philosophy or theism or any of the ancient mythologies so I admit I am not familiar with Carl Jung or Joseph Campbell. I will look into what they have to say.
I think I anyone can recognize that there are 'good messages' or 'truths' in any religion or mythology. But I still do not see how one can find the existence of those that are said to provide the 'messages/truths' to be real. This is where I cannot stand with those that are believers or followers of any religion or belief system. As someone who was raised in the United States I can only fall back to the religions of the bible as an example. Just because there are good messages (believers may prefer I use 'truths') in the bible why should I find Yaweh or the divinity of Jesus to be real? If one finds reason to believe Yaweh is real then I do not see how they do NOT find reason to believe Brahman is real.
I am afraid I may not be clearly explaining my thoughts. I apologize if you do not follow what I am saying. In a nutshell, I cannot accept that a god is real simply because there are beneficial teachings in a book.
Many people deny God because they cannot have an explanation from science or solid evidence. But in the face of impending death or the reality that they are going to die they shake they fist and blame God or curse God.
A lot of people accept the fact that they are going to die soon without blame any particular god, you are saying a fallacious argument; and even so all the non-believers do so before their death knowing that they're gonna die, it does not prove that a god exist; as an atheist i don't denial that a god or gods exist, but i don't have evidence to believe that a god or gods exist, the burden of proof is in those who makes the claim that a particular god exist.
@@eliassandoval9530 the evidence of God is all around us. People just don’t want to accept it. Please don’t call or claim yourself to be an atheist and you say you don’t deny the existence of god or god. You just went completely went directly opposite of the meaning of the word atheist. Which is also fallacious.
@@TheG7thcapo atheism is the lack of belief, simple, i don't denial the existence of any god, i'm not convince of their existence; second, what you call "proof around us" is just an assumption, you see everything as a creation, therefore it must has a creator, but you have the burden of proof to demostrate that a creator made everything, otherwise it's just an assumption and a claim. Sorry for spelling errors, english is not my first language.
@@eliassandoval9530 i did not say proof. I said evidence. Two different words. Secondly if we go to the root of the word atheist it means “ without god/gods or to reject the existence of god. Many people claim they are atheist but says i simply lack the belief in god. Then they should call themselves agnostic. Please think again. Have a good day my friend.
@@TheG7thcapo proof and evidence are synonyms, but anyways, what you call "evidence" is not evidence, is just an assumption; and no, an atheist is someone who don't believe in god, in ANY god, that's atheism (whithout god or gods) i'm an atheist - agnostic as well, because i don't believe in any gods but i don't claim to have evidence that confirms the non-existence of any god; at the end, those who claims that a god exist are who must proves that this god exist.
So here's a bit of gap for you. Why is this deity so enigmatic?
0:24 "what you know to be true" ugh!
alex seioo
Get over it.
alex seeioo -
Exactly. I don't believe in god, but I don't know it doesn't exist (I'm pretty sure, but not absolutely sure). How someone can think they know god exists seems thoroughly arrogant and self-righteous.
@@alankoslowski9473 if you know you know. It’s not arrogant to know the sun shines. No matter how many blind people may doubt the sun.
@@seany8751 We and everyone else with normal vision can see the sun shining, so that's not arrogant. Claiming you see something unverifiable is delusional and self-righteousness.
@@alankoslowski9473 perhaps if we had clear vision God would be as clear as the sun? perhaps it's arrogant to claim something cannot be know just because we do not know it. Maybe people are deluded and self righteous in thinking God cannot be known.
“Is God willing to stop evil but unable?
Then he is not almighty.
Is he able but unwilling?
Then he is unkind.
Is he both able and willing?
Then where does evil come from?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”
-Attributed to Epicurus
_The word ‘God’ is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions._ -Albert Einstein, in letter written to Jewish philosopher Eric Gutkind, January 1954 (a year before Einstein's death)
*Fear* of death makes us cling to religion and holy books; that fear creates (1) God, (2) the terror of being nothing, and (3) the many spiritual vampires and exploiters throughout millennia that suck the money and the energy out of gullible people. How gullible are we human beings! The self creates fear. The end of the self brings *total freedom.*
Waiting for all living beings when they die is something utterly impersonal: the unknowable, *nothingness.* 💕 ☮ 🌎
totalFreedom45 Your name is an oxymoron. You cannot be an Atheist and believe in free will. According to Richard Dawkins, free will is non-existent. You should change your account name to "slave to another neuron".
totalFreedom45 Your comment confuses me; are you an Atheist, or do you believe in a Soul?
totalfreedom45 Einstein was fond of Spinoza’s God, last time I checked.
@@blackneos940 I am an atheist and certainly believe in free will.
@@G8rfan61 I'm not exactly sure how you equate a non-created universe and a hardwired brain with free will. I, my Nephew, and Mom all saw my Dad separately before each of us knew he died. But back to the point. I'm a spiritual person. Saying you believe in free will would be like me saying I don't believe in Heaven... I'm happy that you choose not to have such a soul-crushing outlook on things, but Richard Dawkins, among other atheists, would disagree with you on free will,
This was ... ok
God=nature , spinozas
@impishDCfan85 85 that fits well with determinism
All I've seen Francis do here is reiterate to Robert what he himself said in the first place - that all the current arguments we have for the existence of god are fallacious in some way. I'd like to see a further video of Francis saying why he DOES believe ... but then again, I'm sure he just cites "personal experience," which is not an argument at all. Anyway, I still appreciate and will never forget how Francis tried to help Hitchens when he had cancer, and I respect him as a person. But as for his beliefs ... just another irrational argument.
*"all the current arguments we have for the existence of god are fallacious in some way."*
He never said that.
Hey….Atheists…. If a wooden chair could tell who was the Carpenter that built it…. Then human can tell who was it’s creator.. But there is a Carpenter and there is a Creator.
Human in past 7000 years has just slightly starting to learn about it.
Lol dumb point but can't expect better
@@ManiBalajiC 3 lbs of brain wants proof
And thus no good reason to believe in a God is left.
Good talk!
He says god of the gap is fallacy and Darwin of the gap is true