One slight correction to RR at 7:02: In my understanding, moral performance is not the metric for the Heaven/Hell gauntlet, but rather belief - in Christ/that Christ died for one's lacking moral performance/that the will of God is good and agreeable ("give us this bread, our daily bread). From there it gets a bit unclear, but it's not about moral performance (though with such a punishment, it seems non-belief in this respect could be considered a moral failing itself).
Hey Steve, I would recommend watching Tom Scott's video "This Video Is Sponsored By ███ VPN" to clarify what VPNs really do. It's true that VPNs encrypt your traffic, but if you're connected to any modern website with HTTPS, you already are doing that. They also don't make you technologically invisible (though I appreciate the Drax joke). A more correct way to describe it would be "hides your internet usage *from your internet service provider* and lets you hide your location from websites you visit". P.S. I do appreciate that you didn't say something like "if you aren't using a VPN on public wifi, then hackers can steal all your passwords and banking information", because that's a common yet completely false marketing point.
@@terminaro I often wish WLC would debate a trained philosopher like Bertrand Russell (if he were still alive) able to point out WLC's logical fallacies and even present slides using symbolic logic for why they're fallacious.
@@darkengine5931 That can still be done with living philosophers, but would not be usefull. Apologetics like him do not discuss to find truth but to appeal to their audience, who is super biased and unwilling to change idea.
@@terminaro I think it's just a fun wish of mine, since I've often seen WLC insult the lack of philosophical background of people like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Lawrence Krauss (and he does have a point there). So I want to see a philosophical heavyweight vs. WLC. 😀
The dishonesty of WLC knows no bounds. The question wasn't even remotely related to whether it's easy to discern our objective moral duties, yet he strawman's the shit out of it.
That's because Craig runs off of a script. He does this all of the time. Frank Turek too, if you pay attention. They don't actually answer questions, they twist them so they can get back on script and say the kinds of things they want to say, not what an actual answer would require.
Because theists don't have to answer questions, they just need to parrot the same old dogma they always have because rote repetition is how theism works.
Craig knows that an honest answer destroys his beliefs. He knows he has to lie or his gullible followers wont buy tickets for his pointless talks or his stupid books and without money he would be on the street because he has no talent for any real job.
If a general gives unclear orders, we blame the general. When a ruler gives unclear proclamations, we blame the ruler. When God gives unclear rules on morality, we blame ourselves for not praying hard enough....
@@samuelboucher1454 remind me again how many different christian denominations are uterly convinced they rest of the christian denominations are going to hell?
"It wasn't slavery..." has got to be the most morally corrupt response possible when asked about biblical slavery. It would be a better answer to say that one doesn't know why God would have said that was ok then and it isn't now. But then theists are allergic to "I don't know" and might die if they ever said those words.
*But then theists are allergic to "I don't know"...* That's not true. Just ask them for evidence for the things they believe. Or ask them why bone cancer kills children's by the thousands each year. "Mysterious ways" will be the answer. We pathetic humans don't know why God allows this, but obviously God has a reason that is perfectly moral.
@Brandon Letzco Yep. And rarely would the theist reply. They’d dodge and weave and make irrelevant points like “paid work for an employee is also slavery”.
@@ThirdHare They admit that. It’s not a problem because it’s an instance they can point to and say “slavery is wrong”. There’s no conflict there between morality and what the bible condones. It’s the slavery of non-Hebrews by the Hebrews that’s the problem because it’s equally as immoral but is very explicitly permitted. And it’s very explicitly “proper” slavery, complete with beating people to make them work or behave, and passing them down in your inheritance because they are your property. You can’t get much more explicit than that, yet so so many Christians flat out deny these passages and stick their fingers in their ears and sing “La la la I’m not listening”. They have to otherwise what they believe crumbles. There’s no way to square what the bible says with any sort of moral decency. Rather than recognising that and adjusting their beliefs accordingly, they instead choose to be delusional and deny reality. I’ve seen so many Christians so this on the topic of slavery, and it amazes me every time.
Slavery was banned under Torah law, so people are correct for telling you that: Exodus 21:16 (NASB95) “He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death. You CANNOT own a person against their will under Torah law. You all need to stop with the morally corrupt lies against the Bible. If you don't want to follow Jesus that's your choice. If you don't want to actually do your due diligence and read what the Bible actually says that's also your choice. But please stop cherry picking a small handful of verses out of context and twisting them to suit your purposes, then spreading your lies and misinformation.
Hi Steven. I've been following you since 2017. Since the beginning I've always found your videos amusing and interesting, and I feel like I've joined you in some way, shape, or form in your journey in understanding the biggest questions in life since. I'm from Peru and unfortunately not everyone I know speaks or clearly understands English, as such, I cannot share your videos with them (especially since the auto generated captions are not always reliable). If you were willing, I'd love to help translate your videos so that we could add the corresponding captions in Spanish. Let me know if you are interested. As always, thank you kindly for the content.
It was, Thou shall not steal, as in another soul i.e. kidnapping. If the world followed this one objective moral law there would be dramatically reduced crime and suffering in the world
@@scottrussell7691 Says a person who doesn't have a coherent reason for that demand/standard... Define and justify the need for or superiority of, "objective morality" or anyone being "absolutely wrong." We're waitng.
I'm totally with you here Stephen. I am so tired of people talking about the God of the Bible and Bible stories when they obviously have not even read the actual material.
A long time ago, France had an objective standard for the “meter.” It was physical and kept safe. If there was any question about the length of something, this objective standard could be taken out of storage and compared. Everyone could see if the object was the same, shorter, or longer. Now, I am told the most powerful being in the universe has an objective moral standard. Apparently he is incapable of communicating what the standard is because no two of the thousands of Christian denominations can agree on what it is. So even if there is an objective moral standard, gOd has it locked away and never takes it out for comparison.
Bravo. And we can even say that the meter bar will be x shorter or longer according to temperature Celsius. And don't forget to subtract .000X mm for the machine oil coating that keeps corrosion at bay.
Exactly. Why does God need William Lane Craig to explain objective moral values to everyone if they are objective? So when Craig argues on behalf of God it's already problematic before he even says anything.
There was a time when I thought Craig was above the casual homophobia espoused by other conservatives, but his recent frank discussion with Ben Shapiro shows he's just like them, and maybe only now, as the political climate is changing in America, does he feel safe enough to show his true colours. Great video. I think the point about the danger of not knowing the correct moral action coupled with a God who'll punish you for putting a foot wrong is the strongest 'intuitive' reason to call Craig's bluff on - because that's surely what he's doing. We all know really good reasons why killing is not a beneficial act - but the vast majority of Biblical laws don't have that luxury, and many are definitely against our intuitions so Craig must invent a reason why. It's sickeningly obvious that Craig ignores the text when it suits, claiming intuition overrides it - but only when it's his intuitions.
@@markpalmer9844 I agree with you there, and that's why I think he hasn't been eager to talk about the issue of homosexuality before now. I think he's seen the rise of the Christian Right and conservatism, thanks to A holes like Peterson, and now thinks he's safe enough to be more outspoken on what the Bible says about being gay.
@@Callimo yeah it was obvious to me he was a piece of garbage before and now that he has finally emerged from his thin covering I see people going "whoa how did this happen?! When did he become like this?"
Yeah, I knew after watching him debate Bart Ehrman and especially his debate with Sean Carroll where Craig tried to use the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem to 'prove' that the Universe had a beginning and Carroll had Alan Guth come on and say that he (Guth) thinks the Universe didn't have a beginning. Craigs response was to reiterate his previous argument. Craig doesn't debate he evangelizes
Very thought provoking! I have always questioned why so many in the church consider WLC in such high esteem. He always struck me as a purposely obtuse sophist.
Having watched a lot of other apologists, I think it is rather obvious why WLC is often regarded as the best they got. He manages to (or at least used to) maintain an air of intellectualism just well enough to convince believers and disinterested doubters he's honest and above a lot of the silly behavior from other apologists. WLC is also a fairly competent orator with a knack for misrepresenting his opponents just enough to still sound like he's addressing them. I don't think engaged doubters or academics take his ideas or misrepresentations seriously (at least I've never seen it) beyond using him as the most prominent example when debunking them, but they are a minority of people who have to work against the inherent biases of US society. Furthermore. WLC very confidently state his credentials, even though they are meaningless on most topics he covers as an apologist, which helps the illusion. What other prominent apologists do we have? Frank Turek, who's raving about acronyms and "from goo to you via the zoo"? Most adults probably find that too condescending to endure for long, even if they agree with him. Him being overtly against the theory of evolution also doesn't help find broad appeal. John Lennox, who's arguments offer no more intellectual rigor than WLC, but he's soft spoken to the point of tedium and thus poorly suited for "combative engagement" with the dreaded atheists to defend the faith? It is slim pickings when it is faith, not reason, that is a core tenet of your belief, because those who value reason will change their mind when the evidence. WLC is, in all likelihoos, the best they have. And that is quite the indictment of apologetics as a field.
Dude, they consider the killing of innocent children in the Old Testament as God's righteouesness and glory. Lying and dodging on the spot is no question here
Even back when I was a Christian, I thought this argument and the ontological argument were the most stupid arguments for God's existence. I felt insulted at the time that other Christians thought I would be that stupid to buy it.
If it helps you find a bit of compassion, think about what you considered good arguments for god back then. Could it be, that perhaps someone would find that an insulting stance to take? Blind spots ain't easy to spot ;)
@@tokeivo the otological argument for god, is basically how a child would think about the complexity of an entity that could create our universe. Look at the latest images from the Webb telescope. There are 400 billion other galaxies, most are larger than the Milky Way. Why would a creator bother with the entirety of the universe, if the focus was suppose to be human souls on earth? Is the creator god an Idiot Savant that is amazing at creating things, but cannot communicate with anything? Maybe god has OCD and just can't stop creating more universe? Maybe it's just childish fantasy, and Criag's Intellect has been stuck since he got the Christian Indoctrination Programming. He's been stuck in the same loops since I first saw his garbage over 20 years ago.
as an atheist that's always been an atheist, i do really like the ontological argument. It's so elegant and seems so logical. The fact that you can just "prove" God's existence by thinking about God's existence. Especially Gödels version really made me think.
@@xletix69 that's literally the opposite of "prove", it's an empty assertion. The ontological claim can be applied to any possible deity level being. It is equally valid to claim that the Ontological Argument proves that Cthulhu is the creator deity. The argument can be used for nearly any deity, so the argument is garbage.
@@13shadowwolf i mean yeah, every argument for God (the cosmological, ontological, moral, teleological, contingency, etc) is meant to prove the existence of *a* deity, ie. a creator of all things or any being with god-like features (like omnipotence, timelessness, personality, spacelessness, etc). No shit, the ontological argument doesn't prove the existence of the Christian God - it does not claim to do that. It simply makes a case for any deity that exists beyond time and space and that is "maximally great". If you want prove for the Christian God then look into resurrection stories or at what historians have found out. again, i'm an atheist and have always been but i see some great value in some arguments for God, not because they convince me but because they are fun to think about and it's what got me into philosophy...
The wild thing is that Chatel slavery was once acceptable among Israelites to owning their own people. To put it bluntly, the Bible changes its mind from Exodus to Deuteronomy & Leviticus. It's so "Objective" in it's thinking 😉.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster has its noodly tentacles everywhere in the internet and it will still know what nasty things you do, regardless of what VPN you use.
That's hot! I will regard my internet activities as an act of exhibitionism for the pleasure of the Great Spaghetti. Thank you for giving me additional motivation to pursue my internet perversions!
Heya Steve. You said (2:05), "If objective moral values and duties exist then how do we account for diametrically opposed moral beliefs and practices throughout the years? It's widely accepted as a great question, even, and a very difficult one for moral realists, let alone specifically theists, to answer." As a utilitarian, my moral philosophy is classified as moral realism, and I feel I have a satisfying answer to this question from the utilitarian perspective. To be clear, I am not a theist, and I do not subscribe to divine command theory or other religiously burdened philosophies of morality, but since you mentioned moral realists in general, I felt it appropriate to supply my answer. In utilitarianism, our sole moral duty as moral subjects is to do precisely that which maximizes well-being and minimizes harm and suffering. We do moral good to the extent that we succeed in fulfilling this duty. This is an impossibly difficult task, in particular because we do not know the full range of possible choices we have at any given moment and because we do not know with perfect accuracy the outcome of our possible choices before we make them. We must approximate, using our experience as a guide. Throughout history people have been collectively and individually learning (usually progressively better) ways of making this approximation. In the bronze and early iron ages, "If you have a conflict with your neighbors, genocide them," was an approximation that seemed better than the obvious alternative, "Let your neighbors do you harm without consequence." It was wrong to the extent that, "Communicate with your neighbors and negotiate to resolve conflicts," was an option and would have better served the well-being of all parties involved. The things people and societies have held as moral values and duties have been, as I see it, approximations that have served to build social moral wisdom beyond the scale of a single human lifetime. The fact that they've changed over time reflects moral progress we've made as societies. Indeed, that's what I expect to see as a utilitarian. Not only should they change over time, but they should get progressively better at producing outcomes that maximize well-being and minimize harm and suffering. Which, I would argue, is what we see.
Great response, thank you. The relativistic nature of utilitarianism offers a plausible response to the question at hand. Well articulated. As I'm sure you know, utilitairianism struggles to answer other questions, but to issue the challenges here would be inappropriate. Might have to make a video on it though :)
This doesn't quite work. There must or at least very likely is a most optimal series of decisions that a society of individuals can collectively make that will maximize their outcomes towards certain goals you define or assume they are striving for, but figuring out what those optimal series of decisions are is a very difficult thing to solve for, but regardless of the difficulty to find that solution, a solution definitely exists. This is like for instance if I give you the equation 3x^5 + 33x^4 - 250x^3 - 0.5x^2 + 50x - 500 = 0 And we take solving for the optimal set of decisions to be an analogy for this equation. There is at least 1 solution (value of x) that will solve this equation and make it true. Solving for what exactly those solutions are will take a long time learning and utilizing increasingly complex methods and calculations and deductions, but at least 1 solution does exist, regardless of our ability to currently solve for it. The issue with this is that you've misdirected the target. The question is not whether or not the solution that optimizes humanity towards some specific set of goals exists, but whether or not there is an objective unchanging set of goals or criteria to optimize towards. You've begged the question. In other words, it's not asking if there is a solution to that equation, it's asking if that equation is a 1 size fits all perfect description of whatever thing it's describing mathematically or at least an approximation of that objective thing its an approximation of that thing, or rather, if there is no other equation someone could use to get an equally or more satisfying outcome or use out of. You have to make the argument that there is some one size fits all set of criteria (an equation) rather than whether or not any such equation can be solved. You can't simply say "well it must exist, it's just really hard to solve for" with that, you actually have to prove that it is real or give compelling evidence for it, and that is where it fails. tl;Dr, someone can just dissagree with the definition of "good" you used when you said "maximize the good." You must give an objective definition of good with all the specifics utilitarianism would need to hard calculate it and that is impossible. I too am a bit if a utilitarian and in my view, utilitarianism is unsalvageably morally relative in this way. Some values will be universal, but all will not, and when you factor in game theory, it really gets messy to try to insist it's objective and unchanging.
Is it possible for me to be a moral skeptic and simply hold a personal preference for utilitarianism say, 90% of the time? 9 times out of 10 I opt for a negative utilitarian approach because it feels right to me, to minimize suffering (which I prioritize over maximizing well-being or happiness). I just prefer in every day life to try and minimize the suffering I cause, and advocate for policies that will also minimize suffering - without any notion that there is some objective duty or obligation to do so, or that out there, somewhere, is a "moral fact" written into the fabric of the universe that this is "the right thing to do." Or without necessarily taking the position to its extreme conclusion, i.e. to end all life and therefore all suffering. Can I still call myself a utilitarian of any sort? It isn't clear to me. If I say I am a utilitarian, does this really entail that I view the minimization of suffering as a "moral duty" and not a personal preference? If I live my life as it if is a personal preference, but not a "moral duty", then what am I? Am I overthinking the distinction between "moral duty" and "personal preference"? These are questions that the Google has not been really able to answer for me, so, I figured I'd asked someone who clearly identifies as a utilitarian and a moral realist. Thanks!
@@quaidrowan Maybe your answer lies in some numerical factor (even if it is an unknown number/variable) of the "maximizing of well-being" goal, as a non-zero multiplier of the greater goal of minimizing suffering. I.e. The greatest goal is minimizing suffering The second greatest goal is maximizing well-being The utilitarian best action or imperative might be that minimizing suffering in a way that results in maximal destruction of well-being is not an action that's worth its price. You might even create a formula for this (to the extent you can quantify wellbeing and suffering): Utilitarian imperative score = (x * wellbeing) / (suffering) where x is some numerical value greater than zero but less than 1. It might not get us anywhere other than "to end all life and therefore all suffering" gives us a value of ZERO in my formula but if it clears anyone of their doubts about destroying the universe as a moral imperative to consider then it might be just valuable enough to be a starting point.
WLC is smart enough to know how disingenuous he's being, so it must be intentional. My guess is that any soul he saves through deception has infinite utility, compared to his finite lies, and probably assumes Jesus will forgive him.
Or to put it simply, he knows it's just a game, and all he cares about is winning points and being on the leaderboard, even if he has to cheat. Like most people on leaderboards, come to think of it.
His salary depends on the gullibility of the people who buy his useless books on amazon, donate money to his church & organisation or buy tickets to listen to his bullshit.
I honestly just think he has just deluded himself into thinking whatever he is saying is right. Most other people in the world also do the same with their religion; give factual evidence to a Muslim and they will say it's not true. Indoctrination is a powerful tool.
"There are objective morals, but they're impossible to discern!" So... basically they might as well not exist, since we cant prove which ones are which they're no better than subjective morals. Oops!
Stealing may be wrong but I can think of situations where it's justified. For example. My biological "father" was arrested for stealing a tin of beans when I was very young, he literally only did it to feed me and my brothers because we literally had nothing, and as much as I despise my biological "family" of which he is at the very top of my list, I have respect for that act, despite the fact that he was too stupid to get away with it, imo he was fully justified in wanting to feed his children by any means whatsoever, probably the only thing I know of where he actually showed some compassion in his miserable life... 🤦💥
I think even in the worst case, you still blame the individuals actions. Take your father's example, you can't say it was impossible to do the right thing in that situation. How much of their time and their life was spent on providing the security and safety net that would have stopped that dire needed situation? By the sounds of it very little and they deserve your negative emotions. You might blame systems or specific organizations and situations, but it's my belief that pretty much anyone in this country at least, can avoid a life with crime but it's hard and they choose easy and risky instead. I think it's fair to say had you stolen the goods you have a right to blame your parents because there is a real responsibility to a child to give them everything they need to grow and learn and develop, and a lack of capacity to make good decisions, but as an adult the responsibility falls on you and it's literally your job to exhaust all efforts to provide and sustain a positive well being. I'm not saying respecting the act is wrong, I'm saying it might be ignoring all the prior acts that lead into it which deserve more of the focus. And I think I can say I have similar family ties, and the worst part is you'll never get an admission of failure or responsibility because the excuses always take the lead.
"Wanting to feed his children by any means whatsoever." What about getting a job, making money, and paying for food? Or offering to help around the store he stole from for the equivalent of the cost of the beans?
I still don't get how objective moral standards can come from any deity. Doesn't objective mean that the moral standards would exist even if the deity didn't?
or the deity created those morals, in which case it's subjective. so yes, it's stupid either way. but hey, when did religious folks did not believe it stupid things?
Even assuming a god existed, and was the author of an objective moral code, we would still be faced with the problem of such a god providing such code in the form of a book that has been maintained exclusively by humans for centuries, without any guarantee that no severe errors accumulated over time, or that the text was not knowingly manipulated by people with specific interests, or even that said god is the actual original author of the text to begin with. All those problems could so easily be solved by an all powerful god, it's really surprising to face such trivial issues. Issues that could very well be explained if such texts were authored by ordinary humans.
Yeah, no one has ever been able to answer my question of what ties the Bible to the Abrahamic god. Because the existence of a being that has the property of being undetectable unless he decides to reveal himself, which he rarely does, is impossible to disprove his existence … so if there is a god how do you know the Bible has anything to do with him|her|them|it? So far as I can tell, the only link is that the Bible says it’s the authoritative source… and this is essentially how Christians answer my question, well that and faith.
Can't help it this reminded me young earth apologists insisting that genetic mutations are as they accumulate always wrong. Yet they insist on infallibility of a book rewritten by hand hundreds of times accumulating errors in similar fashion. Funny.
It is amazing how reliably and conclusively that positing that it is humans misunderstanding things, lying, and making things up easily resolves otherwise incredibly difficult to resolve issues with statements and positions in all religions.
I remember watching a debate between WLC and Christopher Hitchens. At the end, when they opened the discussion up to questions from the audience, a young fella said that God has come to him in a dream the night before and told him that homosexuality was just as beautiful as heterosexuality. WLC scoffed at the dude and dismissed the comment as though the guy was clearly messing with him. No addressing the comment at all - just a handwave and move on to the next person. WLC isn't interested in the truth.
Imagine a person drives through a town with no speed limits. They are stopped by the sheriff and informed they are driving too fast and the sheriff then shoots the driver as punishment for disobeying the rules. Imagine another person drives through the same town but this time the town has a sign saying “Drive at an appropriate speed”. The driver drives at what they believe is an appropriate speed. They are stopped by the sheriff and informed they are driving too fast and the sheriff then shoots the driver as punishment for disobeying the rules. Imagine a third person goes through a town and this time the town has many signs all with different speed limits on them. The driver chooses to obey one of the speed limits. They are stopped by the sheriff and informed they are driving too slow and the sheriff then shoots the driver as punishment for disobeying the rules. If a system doesn’t spell out the rules, or the rules are vague or they are contradictory or the punishment is excessive, then that system is grossly unjust. Or at least that’s what my intuition tells me.
@@Directlite664 the driver had been given a lot of phone numbers for the sheriff by various people. Each one claimed that this was the number and not to use any other. He tried calling some of them but got no reply.
@@balhus799 Call sincerely with an open heart. Just say this, 'ooh God, if you are there i love you. Please guide me. ' Do this now and tell me what you feel. Btw, you will never see God, but you can start feeling his presence. Thats the best we can expect.
@@Directlite664 given the God of Christian Theology is supposed to be omnipotent, Omnibenevolent and omnipresent, a “presence” is not the best we should expect. And certainly not a “presence” I am told is God by other human beings. Humans are fallible, they can lie, misunderstand or naively believe want other people tell them. They would be terrible messengers for this supposed supernatural entity and yet they are the only ones I have come across. This is what I was alluding to with my “sheriff” analogy.
Hey, don't knock christian dating sites. They provide a very valuable service to the normies who date people. That service being giving people the ability to ask "Do you have a profile on OnlyChristiansSingleMingle?" and give you advance warning to run the fuck away if they say yes.
Intuition varys from person to person because it's a culmination of experience. The Objective morality argument fails because our perception of the world is subject. The fact that many of us tend to reach similar conclusions is merely a byproduct of our shared experience. Anything that's "moral" is so because we all agree... Or at least the majority do. Morality is subject until we decide to make it objective.
I think the answer to moral disagreements is that morality is just this higher emergent property. And we happen to be interacting with it poorly. Because reality is unfair and we don't understand it. But we are always pushing towards less immorality over time. And I think immorality is something simple like imposition on will. We just happen to have stronger intuitions and feelings to certain impositions based on different contexts and practicalities. I think all the different concepts like accountability, justice, justification, Atonement, punishment, and others just get latched onto morality because we put them onto it. To say less imposition on will is good is only the case because we seem to prefer that. I wouldn't say there is necessarily a reason that imposition on will is bad instead of good. It's just how we happen to interact with the concept assuming it's imposition on will and not some other concept. I think our ego keeps adding these other concepts to avoid calling ourselves immoral despite what we really want. A reality where nobody can hurt us and we can't hurt anybody else
It's quite interesting how Rationality Rules digs into those topics. As much as i like his analysis reagarding philosophy and epistemology and the deconstruction of the opponents arguments (and also agree how he does it) for me the intellectual approach to these topics always seem a little like "casting pearls before swines". Or in other words: I'm a simple man. Anyone who tries to defend slavery, in any way, shape or form, is done for me. You can rename it, you can try to put it in the context of certain times, jada-jada-jada. In the end, WLC is trying to defend the indefendable. Let's not put this fact under a rug of intellecuality or a meaningful debate. Let's state it as it is: WLC and everyone doing the same, has a moral rotten to the core. They may have their reasons to do it, but this doesn't make it right. The simple reason WLC is not running for office to turn every country back into slavery/indentured servitude just shows, he knows himself that this is an abhorrend viewpoint. If he would truly believe in what his holy bible says he would work towards a world, defined by it. But he doesn't and this tells a lot. The fact they don't believe it doesn't help, because people listening to them may believe it. And this throws decades of progress under the bus. This is playing with fire. So again, Rationality Rules, thanks for the intellectual approach, thank for the deep down analysis, thanks for thinking stuff throught an put it in pieces of brainfood easy to digest. Sometimes i need this, but sometimes i just like to listen to Sir Sic calling those people for what they are: Morally disfuntional and evil. (and cunts ;) )
@@castlesandcuriosities I'm gonna check it out. Title of their (your?) last video: "The Unholy Trinity of Polished Turds" - oh someone's trying to get my attention - it worked ...
The message of the so-called gospel of JC was aimed at the simple men, the down-trodden, the man in the street. Although I appreciate Stephen's philosophical deconstruction of WLC's stuff, I, too am like you Lusti. Simply put, there is no moral justification for some of the serious shit in the bible, and hence Dawkins won't debate Craig on that principle. Therefore, apologetics is basically for smart Christians.
For a man with two terminal degrees, Craig seems to have a schoolboy understanding of how the brain develops and works. While we are born with predictive processes at a genetic level like breathing, digesting etc., much of our intuitive sense in navigating reality comes from undeclared memories (from previous predictive processes in cognitive development) the brain has deemed successful enough to not require conscious scrutiny each time it is utilized. These could be colloquially called habits. Of course when habits are sidelined from the corrective portion of the predictive process, they are immune from modification or disbandment. This is why changing minds is so difficult. I would suggest that Craig has misplaced his sense of curiosity to the point where he cannot imagine any other explanation other than the one that fits his habitual intuition.
"In the absence of some defeater of that experience, you are perfectly rational to believe that there is an external world." Wait, did Craig just argue it's perfectly rational to believe something in the absence of good evidence or arguments (i.e. you'd also be perfectly rational to believe that Allah, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, etc. exists)? The defeater is that you'd have to believe a whole lot of other contradictory things too if you follow that epistemology. But sure, contingent on God's existence (which I don't accept), I'm happy to accept that objective morality exists (by definition, pretty much). It's just that no-one can know for sure what that is, which renders the claim somewhat pointless.
That’s interesting. I’m agnostic to God’s existence, but I’m doubtful that objective morality would exist even if God does. Say we knew for sure that God exists and that he gave us his opinions on how we ought to conduct ourselves. If someone were to ask, “Why ought I to obey God?” and if objective moral laws could only come from God, then the only valid response would be, “Because God commanded us to obey him.” This would beg the question, though. I suppose one could argue that objective moral laws come from God and other sources. I don’t know. What do you think?
Logically pointless, but SOPHISTically useful in a manipulative way. Because a self-deluded person may then turn around and say "You cannot question me, you are questioning the very fabric of morality which is not morality itself so only through my crazy antics can you be considered moral which thus always justifies why I should take power from you."
@@averagejoe2232 Yes, that is the issue of objective and absolute morality. If such a thing exists, then it by definition has to be absent of any being's whims; Meaning that if it hinges on what a God says or thinks is moral, it is neither objective nor absolute.
@@OzixiThrill Right! Has any theist addressed this? I hear C. S. Lewis’s Moral Argument all the time, but none of them seem to ask how certain preferences are objective laws just because they are held by the greatest possible being.
@@averagejoe2232 The way I see it: The claim goes that God created humanity to serve him and follow his commandments. Our purpose would thus be, by definition and objectively, to do that. We could of course reject this purpose, but it seems fair to call that objective morality. It's probably also fair to not call that objective morality. It may just be semantics.
Within Christian theology, one of the primary purposes of moral laws are to show us that we continually fail to meet them. This is true of all people. If you had an invisible voice recorder that documented every time you made a moral judgment of what someone should do, and were judged against that, you would stand condemned. The law humbles us and shows us that we are not superior to anyone. We all need grace.
No, no, no! You've got it all wrong. All those rules we don't like anymore are part of the "old law" that was fulfilled by Jesus. Except for the parts we like. Those we can still persecute people we don't like with.
The old covenant contained both the moral law and the ceremonial law. Christ upheld both parts, fulfilling the ceremonial law and affirming the moral law. Ceremonial law contains things like the pesky law about the mixed fabrics. Moral law is summed up in the ten commandments.
@@juanausensi499 It's a bit of a deep subject, but in summary the moral law can be found in the ten commandments and the teaching that elaborates on them. They are further summarized by the two great commandments, love God with all your being and love your neighbor as yourself. The ceremonial law is anything that requires the office of priest to exercise or is related to being ceremonially clean. Christ took that burden on himself through his death burial and resurrection. The letter to the Hebrews talks about this in more detail.
If it is so difficult to understand objective morality, what's its point? If we have to rely on our judgement to tell the good interpretation of "objective morality" from the bad interpretation "objective morality", why not rely on our judgement in the first place, unencumbered by the "metaphorical" riddles thrown at us by some ancient scripture?
I was thinking that myself. Let's say 'objective morality' exists. But we don't know it and we also don't know how to even start to search for it. So, we rely on our intuitions and agreements on a daily basis. So, what benefit the belief in 'objective morality' has?
@@juanausensi499 Objective morality would provide comfort to those who think it could be a problem if we have any choice over what the best morality is. However, if it is just as hard to find as any other morality that is at least as good then, as you say, what is the point?
WLC's words get larger the weaker his position is. It's almost like he's trying to obfuscate when he has no reasonable answer, and I'm sure the audience can see that also.
I don't believe that Craig could have engaged with Atheists and philosophers in debate and discussions for as long as he has without understanding points made against him. In a written debate against a philosopher on the topic of causality (if anyone have the name, I'd be grateful), he ended up saying that since the current understandings of causality not being able to account for god creating the universe, that meant that god is a counterexample for how those theories of causality were wrong. And how he has repatedly stated that reason is to 'serve the Gospel like a handmaiden' instead of 'lord over it like a magistrate' (Reasonable Faith, I believe, as well as some of his lectures). He's encountered most arguments against his positions countless times and that's just in his public engagement. He's probably encountered most arguments within an academic setting as well, if only because he probably had to engage prior to becoming the famous bigshot apologist. Yet his arguments never seem to change or in any way adapt to criticism, despite some of the flaws in his position being glaringly obvious even to people without better qualifications than a passing interest in the topics. I don't think Craig is stupid. I don't even think Craig is so blinded by his faith that he can't see the validity in the arguments made against his. I think he knows that his arguments and deflections only work against strawmen. His self-described journey to faith wasn't about evidence and he has said that should the evidence turn against christianity, he hopes he has the faith to continue believing anyway (Reasonable Faith). Contrary evidence towards christianity is an obstacle to be overcome, not something to seriously consider. Craig is an apologist first, second and third. As much as he loves to go on about being a philosopher, that too is just an extention of his apologism. And what is his job as an apologist? First and foremost it is to comfort the doubts of christians. To assure them that there are reasons to dismiss the doubting thoughts and, if nothing else, stem the tide of people leaving the church. That is why he has to misunderstand the points so confidently, because he needs to distract the believers from a point that might make them question their faith.
Craig's arguments are definitely aimed at comforting believers who revel in their righteousness, since nearly every non-believer is still a non-believer because even the most basic questions are left unanswered by the apologists. If it were only complex esoteric topics or subtle discrepancies that were the issue they might well be overlooked. But no... the apologists can't even make basic tenets like objective morality work without appealing to common sense which is not objective (or common) at all. The circumstances of life are too complex and diverse for universally applicable absolutes, and it's just laughable and insanely absurd for Craig and his ilk to claim there is an objective morality that they are thoroughly incapable of defining. But their incompetence at understanding God's morals doesn't keep them from claiming they know what God thinks. It's incomprehensible that they can have such certainty in concepts that are so vague. It seems to be nothing less than wishful thinking brought on by an irrational fear of uncertainty. Of course paranoia is the hallmark of the fundamentalist Christian.
This video was a long time coming, I've noticed Craig has been off these past two years. Like he's become more desperate and extreme, maybe its his old age or his fading irrelevance but the fact remains. He is going off the deep end and it is actually both scary and saddening to watch.
I don’t know if anyone has read “Why I Became an Atheist” by John W. Loftus. This author used to be William Lane Craig’s student. One of the best books on atheism. I highly recommend it.
Have you ever looked at the "AskAlpha" course material? I went for their taster session at the beginning of the year out of curiosity but never followed up. I am sure there would be some very interesting stuff to debunk in there though. The founder likes to mention "logic" a lot and frames it as if Christianity is the "logical choice"
The hell observation is precisely correct. I am a devout Christian and see this same inconsistency in traditional Christianity. Thanks for challenging our assumptions and beliefs man. Truth comes out when we wrestle with all that is given to us.
It's nice of Bill to point out the failure of religions himself when it comes to morality: interpretation. You have no way of showing what is objectively moral, making it completely useless and you have to rely on subjective and relative secular morality to make any useful moral statement. The problem is easily shown by the different religions and interpretations that lead to splits in churches and the increase beyond just one denomination. Also, objective morality is useless when what is moral changes with context, which it does. Letting someone die is only moral or immoral depending on the circumstances. So even if objective morals existed we would still have to figure out how it applies in all infinite different contextual situations. Religions provide no such guide or moral principle to judge things by. The well being of people is merely a skewed interpretation of well established patterns in holy texts that show the well being of people to be the least important and worship and belief and the limiting of freedoms of people who aren't cis, hetero males to be the most important. So in that light the progress of countries where well being has increased for all people are being horribly immoral blasphemers for the way they exist and have progressed. Well being for all people is a secular idea that actually works as a basis for moral principles. In other words: religion has no basis to make any moral claims and no way of knowing how to apply morality in any given situation and secular morality has a functional basis that is rooted in demonstrable facts about our existence and it has ways and a freedom to apply morality in any given situation. We don't just have to guess what a god wants with no way of testing if we're correct and adapting our morality. We can just look at patterns in the past and present and see what works. For instance, if no one is harmed by your sexuality and gender for instance then people should leave those the fuck alone. People are demonstrably harmed by people meddling in other people's sexuality and gender with bigotry and laws that limit people's rights to love and marry who they want or have their bodies to themselves instead of having to share it with someone else. Giving people those freedoms that should've never been taken away harms no one. Limiting those freedoms for people does. Just compare that to the useless lists of overly specific, useless shit in "holy" texts. Celebrate the sabbath. Why? Fucking WHY? Don't eat yeast on the sabbath. Why? Kill those men who lay with a man as they do with a woman. Why? Don't boil a baby goat in it's mother's milk. Fine, I'll use the milk of the goat of my neighbours, but FFS, why not? There is no reason given, no pattern to discover besides: the narcissist wants arbitrary shit from you without giving a reason or a way to figure it out and if you fuck up you'll be executed and it's YOUR fault because you suck as is dictated by the gaslighting. My example was just that: an example. And it's easy to figure out the pattern to use in other contexts: if limiting freedoms harms people and letting people have those freedoms harms no one, then let them fucking have those freedoms and fuck off with your obsolete, and archaic logic! Let my people go!
Objective moral values have a huge gray area... so they're open to interpretation and can change in time? So they're basically subjective? Amazing observation by William "Low bar" Lame Craig
Here's the issue I have; the same intuition I have that torturing babies is immoral that WLC appeals to in order to support the moral argument, is the same intuition that tells me a being who commands children to be slaughtered in the Bible is immoral, thus I am left either affirming the moral argument or denying Christianity to be true.
I've received quite a few responses, so I might do a live-stream type of response at some point in which I'll touch upon multiple comments. There's been lots of great points that have altered my views, but also a lot of misunderstanding that'll be worth clearing up.
It’s far far far simpler than this. Theists claim: god decided what is moral If an entity has decided what is moral then this is the opposite of objectivity.
No one has proven it, but I definitely believe in it. It automatically gives life inherent meaning when it's true. Postmodernists often have problems with searching for meaning because they don't accept the idea of objective moral values and duties on faith. No one says they have to, but they often feel lost as a consequence of this refusal.
@@theboombody Since Craig's moral argument for his god is based on the existence of objective morals, if he can't prove them, his argument is flawed - agreed?
@@theboombody Believing in them doesn't help unless you know what those morals are. In fact, it is worse, because now you believe there is a fixed moral code that you shoul follow, but you don't know what is it, so you are probably doing wrong things all the time. But if you don't think those objective morals exist, then it also means you are not doing anything wrong. In order to the belief in objective morals feeling positive, you must also believe that you have found them. So my question is, have you found them? If so, what are they? If not, why believing in them doesn't make you more worried?
@@JMUDoc If you want to say his argument proves God, and he can't prove that morality is objective, then yeah, I would say his proof has failed. That's why I never try to PROVE God is real. I don't think it can be done. But, like I said, the belief gives direction, commitment, and purpose, and the postmodernists often have a difficult time with those things.
Isn't is funny that WLC has been using the same moral arguments for his whole life and he cannot specifically list the actual moral values or duties or obligations, and nobody has ever challenged him to list them.
I'm still stuck on the MLK response when someone asked why he thought girls matured physically faster than boys "Same reason why weeds grow faster than roses". Umm...what? So they can get at the sunlight quicker than the surrounding plants?
So Craig says that he makes no claim that morals are easy to discern, yet he bases his absolutist morals on some cases beeing sooo obviously imoral that they can be said to groung the absolute values? That seems a little, well... 😬
I wouldn't say *failure* to distinguish between native and foreign slaves, so much as *refusal* - it's not only inconvenient, it's utterly incompatible with our modern sensibilities, and so, because God is moral, it *can't have existed at all*
Anyone else think that WLC could have a pantomime career playing Widow Twankey? Just throwing it out there. Craig has gaslit himself. He's got his talking points, he's extrapolated them for years, and now he's so far down the rabbit hole he's about to reach China.
Here the answer: There are no right or wrong. Just opinions. And that doesnt make them less valued. We need as a soceity get together and create a subjective consensus of our moral opinions.
Craig's moral grey area/moral learning argument is rendered mute by the direct action of God in drowning almost every living thing, including puppies, kittens and pregnant women. If everything god does is moral, and some of that god's actions are more murderous than stalin, pol pot and Hitler, then the only real moral judgement is whether an act is performed in the name of that particular god.
It could be argued that God is not subject to the ethics of human law. If God exists then he is the one who authorized the creation of life, so would it be immoral of him to annul life as he wishes? In a sense it could be said that God "owns" us and gets to do with us as he chooses.
@@MrEVAQ you're only digging the hole deeper. If god owns us, and explicitly sanctions slavery, then anti-slavery christians are arrogantly trying to replace god's perfect judgement with their own. Now, I think I will go enjoy some oysters, without having to pretend to be doing something immoral.
Last time I was here this early, I was writing a book. Now, I am still writing that same book. Theological epistemology and ontology, even in fantasy, is hard. But the only thing that has stayed the same between these two points of time, is I think William Lane Craig is an overrated apologist.
When it comes to the claim that god wrote morally on our hearts, if always wondered what that means for psychopaths, did god just forget to write the morals on their hearts?
6:35 "It's not clear what our moral values are, or what the moral duty is for us to do". Facepalm! According to Craig we have a duty to follow an objective set of rules. But those rules are only clear in literally 2 or 3 cases out of billions of possible circumstances where morality need be applied. So let me get this straight: * There's an objective set of rules * We have a duty to follow those rules * It's not clear what those rules are What a nothing-burger of an argument. And remember - the moral argument is an argument for the existence of God. This makes the whole thing a double-facepalm. Summary: * Craig: "My evidence for God is that objective moral duties exist" * Questioner: "If objective moral duties exist, why does morality change massively over time? It seems like objective moral duties don't actually exist" * Craig: "It's not clear what our moral values are" So his evidence that God exists is that objective moral duties exist. And when questioned about objective moral duties he replies that it's not clear that they do exist, but even though it seems like they don't exist we should just trust him that they do. Very convincing argument there, Bill. We all know the argument is circular. Bill only believes objective moral duties exist because he believes God exists.
@@gowdsake7103 I think you’re being too kind to Craig’s perspective here. Under his perspective the woman should… we don’t know! It’s not clear what the moral duties she must follow are. If a bunch of school kids were bullying another school kid we should… it’s not clear. You can repeat this for almost every conceivable situation and Craig’s answer is the same… it’s not clear what the moral duties are. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist, and we’re still obliged to follow these duties… whatever they happen to be. The only things people making the moral argument for God can really point to as universally wrong are murder and stealing. Which is hilarious given the bible has untold number of times where God committed or commanded murder. Often so the Israelites could steal the land of the people they were “perfectly morally” obliterating. So according to Craig these duties and values so exist. It’s not clear what they are except for a few instances. And what Craig would tell you are the clear-cut instances, they conflict directly with the actions and commands of God. What a ridiculous argument it is.
He doesn't get away with the last word though does he? He virtually always allows the opposition to have the last word. Have you ever watched one of his debates?
Any chance you could put a brief description of the content of the video in the description box? I think it's nice to have an overview of the topic before diving into a video with such a generic title.
Added: In this video I object to a response that Dr. William Lane Craig gives to a potent moral question, while simultaneously emphasising tension and inconsistency between the two methods of acquiring moral knowledge that Craig defends.
I especially like the third argument about retro-fitting the bable into individual moral intuitions. Jordan Peterson really put logic upside down with his assertion that all atheists "really are theists on the inside", when it is so clearly the opposite that can be observed over and over: every faith-follower is inevitably at some point separating the "literal" from the "metaphoric" to suit some of their preconceived principles (or to rationalize their past decisions...)
The real issue behind the morality changes over time thing, is that those 'clear cut' examples he mentions were reached by consensus. We say its objectively always wrong to torture babies because we all agree on that, not because there has been any sort of objective demonstration. If you rely on consensus to reach 'objective' positions, then our ability to change the consensus over time essentially means that objective morality will change over time too. Also, I still maintain that objective morality is useless. Even if you could demonstrate that some moral principle is somehow objective, you would still have to appeal to someone's own personal goals/desires to get them to act in accordance with it. People want objective morality because they want to be able to force others to act a specific way, but that wouldn't even work.
One of the foremost responses you'll get from Christians to the challenge of morphing objective morality is some vague thing about humans being ready for various stages of moral instruction. It's weak for two reasons: Omnipotence and, when we look at the specifics, we really can't see, even without the omnipotence (the god's ability to simply communicate a thing by whatever means, including restructuring the brain if needed), the reasons for the difficulty in many cases. A better tack may exist outside the realm of logical checkmating, which is to feature for the Christian certain tenets that seem to stem directly from human intuition in its more clearly fallible moves. Cutting the hand off of a wife who touched another man's junk is just such a tenet . We start with jealousy/insecurity. Then add the unscientifically educated mind, that thinks that the point of contact is where the memory of the touch (and presumably the sexual attraction) is housed (we project this phenomenon because pleasurable sensations exist in parts of the body for some period after the contact that created them, and we sometimes unintentionally re-instigate said feelings in specific parts of the body upon memory of the contact). Walla, cut the hand off. The prohibition against people with deformities, missing limbs, cripples, etc., from entering the holy tent of meeting (during the exodus) is such a tenet. It not only makes this determination and not only calls these things detestable, but the text actually declares them detestable in the eyes of God. This is projection of human, evolutionary sense onto an omnipotent being, for whom no such discomfort is possible (being omnipotent). Such "intuition" stems from our weakness - it's clearly a vulnerability, an avoidance impulse with evolutionary roots and, what's more, mere mortals can overcome it with the slightest amount of extended exposure to said individuals. This tenet is so important because it's not only declared, but the reason for it is, and the reason is in the mind of the God. The misstep likely stems from the fact that the early belief was not of omnipotence, but of super huge power (two very different things). The super powerful can be weak. The omnipotent cannot, and hasn't any reason for the slightest distaste.
Bravo 👏 12 years ago I came across William Lane Craig when I was Mormon. Well, I think he is sincere, his philosophies really create a lot of moral confusion. Like if you’re a believer, they kind of true… But they don’t translate into anything practical. And push you further into the web of delusion.
Steven, "Thou shalt not murder" is not true by definition like a "unmarried bachelor" is. By claiming this you are falling into the same trap as WLC is in appealing to our intuitions. Whether or not murder is unlawful has nothing to do with whether it is right or wrong to do it. If that were the case it would have, for most of history, been immoral to have been homosexual.
@@hsl7168 but that isn't what he said. Watch again 12:05 to 12:18. Steven specifically states "thou shall not murder" is "true by definition" and is not a "moral intuition". He gives no evidence for this, in effect it is an appeal to our intuitions.
@@Pete_1986 these are analytical terms, because they are legal terms, which have been established to describe unlawful acts. This is not about whether the law is morally correct or not. Therefore, the moral- "not grey area" in the bible is build on weak descriptions, which state the obvious.
To me WLC is a narcisist, and I am not talking about tendencies, I mean he actually has NPD. Just look at how he begins to address the point, "This illustrates the failure". Even if the question was misplaced or wrong... Look at how easily he tries to put him down. He is literally above him, being that he is the one with the platform, but literally and figuratively. And he begins by punching down. Discrediting the other person, way before even attempting to answer. This is a pattern that I have noticed a lot. He almost always starts by poisoning the well and or even downright throwing insults. Before he addresses any point, he always tries to discredit the source. Also there is always this air of condescending attitude. Look how he talks to him like "failure to distinguish between moral ontology and moral epistomology". Notice how he presuposes that the one that made the question knows nothing about the topic. Look how he talks to him, with a condescending tone the whole tiem. Also, the question was never antagonisthic. But look how defensive he often gets, he treats everyone that is even curious as opposition. Also, Look how often he tries to show how intelectually superior he is, rather than addressing any criticism. He often wants to put others down, and put himself up. Not winning by argumentation but by claiming intellectual superiority and or tauting his credentials and accomplishments. To me it is clear that he has NPD, and the more I see him the more I think it is true. That doesn't mean he is wrong mind you. Unlike him, I am not saying this to discredit him. It is just something I have observed and one of the reasons I find him very hard to watch. I love hearing people I do not agree with, it is something I have always done. So it is not about what he says. But his arrogance, makes it really hard for me to watch.
Are you going to talk to Ask Yourself regarding veganism? His comment on your last video is one of the most liked, but I can't see that you've responded.
Yeah, very likely. I'm also interested in speaking with Perspective Philosophy and a few other vegan content creators. Ideally, I'd like to do so after creating a video titled "The best argument for veganism" in which I'll provide what is, by my lights, the most convincing argument for veganism. As much as I've appreciated the responses so far, I've honestly been quite frustrated by how many vegans (not including the two mentioned above) have interpreted me as somehow claiming veganism to be unsubstantiated, endorsing Social Darwinism, and defending the "Crop Death Tho" argument. Hopefully a further video and a few conversations will fix the bad communication / bad interpretations.
It’s definitely something shameful and disproportionately true, vegan misunderstandings and elitism. I’m a vegan, but I wasn’t fucking born a vegan. I think I’m right and I’m happy to talk about it, but I can’t stand the way too many vegans look down their noses at omnivores like they, too, weren’t raised in a society that consumes farmed or hunted meat as a staple.
@@rationalityrules Hey man, the recent cosmicskeptic debacle reminded me of this comment. I would still really like to see a conversation with yourself and Ask Yourself. Do you still plan on doing this?
Hey Steven, I always appreciate your videos, the level of intellectual honesty is always mind blowing, and I greatly enjoy the content. May I just point something out. VPNs do encrypt traffic, but https traffic (the most used by 99% of websites) is already encrypted. So the only thing you are hiding when you use a VPN is to which websites you are talking to. And you are only hiding that from your ISP and revealing it to the VPN provider (which can be more shady than the ISP, specially given GDPR regulations). I understand that you are sponsored and that this is important for your channel, but recommending VPNs like that is very miss leading to the general audience.I also don't fault you for not knowing this until now. Anyway, the content is still amazing, keep up the good work.
6:18 Stephen - Dr Craig is the master of conveniently missing the point. He does it on every question he's asked these days. The man loves knocking down straw men, and he doesn't care how remote the straw man is from the question that was actually asked.
An appeal to revelation is nothing more than am appeal to the claimed intuition of an individual that has never been demonstrated to exist, much less actually have opinions.
I feel that to sell any VPN as offering "technical invisibility" is unsound. Unless you incorporate some kind of MAC address ghosting tools and guarantee to your satisfaction that there is nobody, including your VPN provider taking logs. Just for starters.
Grab Atlas VPN deal for just 1.99$ a month + 3 months FREE: get.atlasvpn.com/RationalityRules
👋
7:07
Where's that clip from?
Enjoying this critique, BTW.
One slight correction to RR at 7:02: In my understanding, moral performance is not the metric for the Heaven/Hell gauntlet, but rather belief - in Christ/that Christ died for one's lacking moral performance/that the will of God is good and agreeable ("give us this bread, our daily bread). From there it gets a bit unclear, but it's not about moral performance (though with such a punishment, it seems non-belief in this respect could be considered a moral failing itself).
Hey Steve, I would recommend watching Tom Scott's video "This Video Is Sponsored By ███ VPN" to clarify what VPNs really do. It's true that VPNs encrypt your traffic, but if you're connected to any modern website with HTTPS, you already are doing that. They also don't make you technologically invisible (though I appreciate the Drax joke). A more correct way to describe it would be "hides your internet usage *from your internet service provider* and lets you hide your location from websites you visit".
P.S. I do appreciate that you didn't say something like "if you aren't using a VPN on public wifi, then hackers can steal all your passwords and banking information", because that's a common yet completely false marketing point.
There seems to be an unintentional cut at 0:27, check it out!
WLC: "We should abide by God's commands as objective morals but we just can't be sure what they are! I'm a philosopher!"
Worse I am afraid. "We should abide by [...] and people *know* they are these contradictory standards!"
So many people hide behind the title "philosopher" when preacing religious beliefs, it always drive me nuts.
Philosopher here.
@@terminaro I often wish WLC would debate a trained philosopher like Bertrand Russell (if he were still alive) able to point out WLC's logical fallacies and even present slides using symbolic logic for why they're fallacious.
@@darkengine5931 That can still be done with living philosophers, but would not be usefull. Apologetics like him do not discuss to find truth but to appeal to their audience, who is super biased and unwilling to change idea.
@@terminaro I think it's just a fun wish of mine, since I've often seen WLC insult the lack of philosophical background of people like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Lawrence Krauss (and he does have a point there). So I want to see a philosophical heavyweight vs. WLC. 😀
The dishonesty of WLC knows no bounds. The question wasn't even remotely related to whether it's easy to discern our objective moral duties, yet he strawman's the shit out of it.
That's because Craig runs off of a script. He does this all of the time. Frank Turek too, if you pay attention. They don't actually answer questions, they twist them so they can get back on script and say the kinds of things they want to say, not what an actual answer would require.
Because theists don't have to answer questions, they just need to parrot the same old dogma they always have because rote repetition is how theism works.
Craig knows that an honest answer destroys his beliefs. He knows he has to lie or his gullible followers wont buy tickets for his pointless talks or his stupid books and without money he would be on the street because he has no talent for any real job.
@@atheistsfightclub6684 They can't answer questions. They've never thought intelligently about any of this. They just want to believe.
So much word salad. It's insane how people find people like Peterson or wlc as intellectuals.
If a general gives unclear orders, we blame the general.
When a ruler gives unclear proclamations, we blame the ruler.
When God gives unclear rules on morality, we blame ourselves for not praying hard enough....
Unclear? You can't count to 10? He even reduced it down to two for us...
@@samuelboucher1454 remind me again how many different christian denominations are uterly convinced they rest of the christian denominations are going to hell?
@@deneb3525 Like 4?
@@samuelboucher1454 lol, that number is well into the thousands.
@@deneb3525 Proof?
"It wasn't slavery..." has got to be the most morally corrupt response possible when asked about biblical slavery. It would be a better answer to say that one doesn't know why God would have said that was ok then and it isn't now. But then theists are allergic to "I don't know" and might die if they ever said those words.
*But then theists are allergic to "I don't know"...*
That's not true. Just ask them for evidence for the things they believe. Or ask them why bone cancer kills children's by the thousands each year. "Mysterious ways" will be the answer. We pathetic humans don't know why God allows this, but obviously God has a reason that is perfectly moral.
I also wonder what theists think of the slavery of the Israelites in Egypt. Does that count as indentured servitude too?
@Brandon Letzco Yep. And rarely would the theist reply. They’d dodge and weave and make irrelevant points like “paid work for an employee is also slavery”.
@@ThirdHare They admit that. It’s not a problem because it’s an instance they can point to and say “slavery is wrong”. There’s no conflict there between morality and what the bible condones.
It’s the slavery of non-Hebrews by the Hebrews that’s the problem because it’s equally as immoral but is very explicitly permitted. And it’s very explicitly “proper” slavery, complete with beating people to make them work or behave, and passing them down in your inheritance because they are your property. You can’t get much more explicit than that, yet so so many Christians flat out deny these passages and stick their fingers in their ears and sing “La la la I’m not listening”. They have to otherwise what they believe crumbles. There’s no way to square what the bible says with any sort of moral decency. Rather than recognising that and adjusting their beliefs accordingly, they instead choose to be delusional and deny reality. I’ve seen so many Christians so this on the topic of slavery, and it amazes me every time.
Slavery was banned under Torah law, so people are correct for telling you that:
Exodus 21:16 (NASB95) “He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death.
You CANNOT own a person against their will under Torah law.
You all need to stop with the morally corrupt lies against the Bible. If you don't want to follow Jesus that's your choice. If you don't want to actually do your due diligence and read what the Bible actually says that's also your choice. But please stop cherry picking a small handful of verses out of context and twisting them to suit your purposes, then spreading your lies and misinformation.
Hi Steven. I've been following you since 2017. Since the beginning I've always found your videos amusing and interesting, and I feel like I've joined you in some way, shape, or form in your journey in understanding the biggest questions in life since. I'm from Peru and unfortunately not everyone I know speaks or clearly understands English, as such, I cannot share your videos with them (especially since the auto generated captions are not always reliable). If you were willing, I'd love to help translate your videos so that we could add the corresponding captions in Spanish. Let me know if you are interested. As always, thank you kindly for the content.
What a wonderful idea!
You might be more likely to get a response on his Facebook, Twitter, or Patreon. I suspect comments here will get lost in the sea of other comments.
I'm here to boost your visibility.
me too
@@undecidedmiddleground5633 thank you!
I’ll never get over the fact that a prohibition against owning another human being was *not* one of the 10 Commandments.
do you need to be explicitly reminded, that forcing gypsies to drink bleach may be wrong, too?
Well, the bible was a product of it's time period, and at the time owning slaves was common, so of course it wouldn't be prohibited by 'god'.
Without slaves (both mental & physical) how do u expect sky daddy 2 have worshippers
It was, Thou shall not steal, as in another soul i.e. kidnapping. If the world followed this one objective moral law there would be dramatically reduced crime and suffering in the world
@@djb7116your god literally condoned slavery, 🤡🤡🤡🤡. By putting laws for Hebrew slaves and non Hebrew slaves ( chattel slaves for life)🤡🤡🤡🤡
He's an apologist, moral bankruptcy is axiomatic.
obligatory qualification
Very well put.
I'll call you an atheist apologist and boom, you're broke man now
Says a person who doesn't have an objective morality and cannot say that anyone is absolutely wrong.
@@scottrussell7691 Says a person who doesn't have a coherent reason for that demand/standard...
Define and justify the need for or superiority of, "objective morality" or anyone being "absolutely wrong."
We're waitng.
I'm totally with you here Stephen. I am so tired of people talking about the God of the Bible and Bible stories when they obviously have not even read the actual material.
A long time ago, France had an objective standard for the “meter.” It was physical and kept safe. If there was any question about the length of something, this objective standard could be taken out of storage and compared. Everyone could see if the object was the same, shorter, or longer.
Now, I am told the most powerful being in the universe has an objective moral standard. Apparently he is incapable of communicating what the standard is because no two of the thousands of Christian denominations can agree on what it is.
So even if there is an objective moral standard, gOd has it locked away and never takes it out for comparison.
Objetive moral standard its an oximoron in itself.
Don’t forget Her follow up books the Quran and the Book of Mormon since they are all supposedly from the same source(I.e. a Canaanite war deity)
Bravo. And we can even say that the meter bar will be x shorter or longer according to temperature Celsius. And don't forget to subtract .000X mm for the machine oil coating that keeps corrosion at bay.
Exactly. Why does God need William Lane Craig to explain objective moral values to everyone if they are objective? So when Craig argues on behalf of God it's already problematic before he even says anything.
France had an objective standard for the "metre", not the "meter" ^^
There was a time when I thought Craig was above the casual homophobia espoused by other conservatives, but his recent frank discussion with Ben Shapiro shows he's just like them, and maybe only now, as the political climate is changing in America, does he feel safe enough to show his true colours.
Great video. I think the point about the danger of not knowing the correct moral action coupled with a God who'll punish you for putting a foot wrong is the strongest 'intuitive' reason to call Craig's bluff on - because that's surely what he's doing. We all know really good reasons why killing is not a beneficial act - but the vast majority of Biblical laws don't have that luxury, and many are definitely against our intuitions so Craig must invent a reason why. It's sickeningly obvious that Craig ignores the text when it suits, claiming intuition overrides it - but only when it's his intuitions.
@@markpalmer9844
I agree with you there, and that's why I think he hasn't been eager to talk about the issue of homosexuality before now. I think he's seen the rise of the Christian Right and conservatism, thanks to A holes like Peterson, and now thinks he's safe enough to be more outspoken on what the Bible says about being gay.
Wait really? You thought this? Knowing the circles Craig runs around, that was a given to me.
@@Callimo
fair enough.
@@Callimo yeah it was obvious to me he was a piece of garbage before and now that he has finally emerged from his thin covering I see people going "whoa how did this happen?! When did he become like this?"
Yeah, I knew after watching him debate Bart Ehrman and especially his debate with Sean Carroll where Craig tried to use the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem to 'prove' that the Universe had a beginning and Carroll had Alan Guth come on and say that he (Guth) thinks the Universe didn't have a beginning. Craigs response was to reiterate his previous argument. Craig doesn't debate he evangelizes
WLC's habitual "misunderstanding" of every good argument against his BS is legendary.
Obvious tactic is obvious. And wrong.
He's smart enough to know he's bending logical conclusions to fit his feelings.
Also smart enough to trick himself and other people
Very thought provoking! I have always questioned why so many in the church consider WLC in such high esteem. He always struck me as a purposely obtuse sophist.
And here I thought he was just a bald faced liar.
Having watched a lot of other apologists, I think it is rather obvious why WLC is often regarded as the best they got. He manages to (or at least used to) maintain an air of intellectualism just well enough to convince believers and disinterested doubters he's honest and above a lot of the silly behavior from other apologists. WLC is also a fairly competent orator with a knack for misrepresenting his opponents just enough to still sound like he's addressing them. I don't think engaged doubters or academics take his ideas or misrepresentations seriously (at least I've never seen it) beyond using him as the most prominent example when debunking them, but they are a minority of people who have to work against the inherent biases of US society. Furthermore. WLC very confidently state his credentials, even though they are meaningless on most topics he covers as an apologist, which helps the illusion.
What other prominent apologists do we have? Frank Turek, who's raving about acronyms and "from goo to you via the zoo"? Most adults probably find that too condescending to endure for long, even if they agree with him. Him being overtly against the theory of evolution also doesn't help find broad appeal. John Lennox, who's arguments offer no more intellectual rigor than WLC, but he's soft spoken to the point of tedium and thus poorly suited for "combative engagement" with the dreaded atheists to defend the faith?
It is slim pickings when it is faith, not reason, that is a core tenet of your belief, because those who value reason will change their mind when the evidence. WLC is, in all likelihoos, the best they have. And that is quite the indictment of apologetics as a field.
Dude, they consider the killing of innocent children in the Old Testament as God's righteouesness and glory. Lying and dodging on the spot is no question here
Even back when I was a Christian, I thought this argument and the ontological argument were the most stupid arguments for God's existence. I felt insulted at the time that other Christians thought I would be that stupid to buy it.
If it helps you find a bit of compassion, think about what you considered good arguments for god back then. Could it be, that perhaps someone would find that an insulting stance to take?
Blind spots ain't easy to spot ;)
@@tokeivo the otological argument for god, is basically how a child would think about the complexity of an entity that could create our universe.
Look at the latest images from the Webb telescope. There are 400 billion other galaxies, most are larger than the Milky Way.
Why would a creator bother with the entirety of the universe, if the focus was suppose to be human souls on earth? Is the creator god an Idiot Savant that is amazing at creating things, but cannot communicate with anything? Maybe god has OCD and just can't stop creating more universe?
Maybe it's just childish fantasy, and Criag's Intellect has been stuck since he got the Christian Indoctrination Programming. He's been stuck in the same loops since I first saw his garbage over 20 years ago.
as an atheist that's always been an atheist, i do really like the ontological argument. It's so elegant and seems so logical. The fact that you can just "prove" God's existence by thinking about God's existence. Especially Gödels version really made me think.
@@xletix69 that's literally the opposite of "prove", it's an empty assertion.
The ontological claim can be applied to any possible deity level being. It is equally valid to claim that the Ontological Argument proves that Cthulhu is the creator deity. The argument can be used for nearly any deity, so the argument is garbage.
@@13shadowwolf i mean yeah, every argument for God (the cosmological, ontological, moral, teleological, contingency, etc) is meant to prove the existence of *a* deity, ie. a creator of all things or any being with god-like features (like omnipotence, timelessness, personality, spacelessness, etc).
No shit, the ontological argument doesn't prove the existence of the Christian God - it does not claim to do that. It simply makes a case for any deity that exists beyond time and space and that is "maximally great". If you want prove for the Christian God then look into resurrection stories or at what historians have found out.
again, i'm an atheist and have always been but i see some great value in some arguments for God, not because they convince me but because they are fun to think about and it's what got me into philosophy...
The wild thing is that Chatel slavery was once acceptable among Israelites to owning their own people.
To put it bluntly, the Bible changes its mind from Exodus to Deuteronomy & Leviticus. It's so "Objective" in it's thinking 😉.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster has its noodly tentacles everywhere in the internet and it will still know what nasty things you do, regardless of what VPN you use.
Poseidon forks your god for dinner 10/10 times.
@@SolSystemDiplomat Eh mahn! Why you vex the Pastafarians like so?
@@TrangleC FSM does have flight. Might be a closer fight than I expect.
🎵 He Sees you when you're sleepin, He
Knows when you're awake 🎵
That's hot!
I will regard my internet activities as an act of exhibitionism for the pleasure of the Great Spaghetti.
Thank you for giving me additional motivation to pursue my internet perversions!
Big props for using the clip at 7:08 of the immortal Tim Curry in his role as the prince of darkness from Legend. You sir are a man of culture.
Heya Steve. You said (2:05), "If objective moral values and duties exist then how do we account for diametrically opposed moral beliefs and practices throughout the years? It's widely accepted as a great question, even, and a very difficult one for moral realists, let alone specifically theists, to answer." As a utilitarian, my moral philosophy is classified as moral realism, and I feel I have a satisfying answer to this question from the utilitarian perspective. To be clear, I am not a theist, and I do not subscribe to divine command theory or other religiously burdened philosophies of morality, but since you mentioned moral realists in general, I felt it appropriate to supply my answer.
In utilitarianism, our sole moral duty as moral subjects is to do precisely that which maximizes well-being and minimizes harm and suffering. We do moral good to the extent that we succeed in fulfilling this duty. This is an impossibly difficult task, in particular because we do not know the full range of possible choices we have at any given moment and because we do not know with perfect accuracy the outcome of our possible choices before we make them. We must approximate, using our experience as a guide. Throughout history people have been collectively and individually learning (usually progressively better) ways of making this approximation. In the bronze and early iron ages, "If you have a conflict with your neighbors, genocide them," was an approximation that seemed better than the obvious alternative, "Let your neighbors do you harm without consequence." It was wrong to the extent that, "Communicate with your neighbors and negotiate to resolve conflicts," was an option and would have better served the well-being of all parties involved.
The things people and societies have held as moral values and duties have been, as I see it, approximations that have served to build social moral wisdom beyond the scale of a single human lifetime. The fact that they've changed over time reflects moral progress we've made as societies. Indeed, that's what I expect to see as a utilitarian. Not only should they change over time, but they should get progressively better at producing outcomes that maximize well-being and minimize harm and suffering. Which, I would argue, is what we see.
Great response, thank you. The relativistic nature of utilitarianism offers a plausible response to the question at hand. Well articulated. As I'm sure you know, utilitairianism struggles to answer other questions, but to issue the challenges here would be inappropriate. Might have to make a video on it though :)
@@rationalityrules Thanks! I'd look forward to that video, and welcome the discussion.
This doesn't quite work.
There must or at least very likely is a most optimal series of decisions that a society of individuals can collectively make that will maximize their outcomes towards certain goals you define or assume they are striving for, but figuring out what those optimal series of decisions are is a very difficult thing to solve for, but regardless of the difficulty to find that solution, a solution definitely exists.
This is like for instance if I give you the equation 3x^5 + 33x^4 - 250x^3 - 0.5x^2 + 50x - 500 = 0
And we take solving for the optimal set of decisions to be an analogy for this equation.
There is at least 1 solution (value of x) that will solve this equation and make it true. Solving for what exactly those solutions are will take a long time learning and utilizing increasingly complex methods and calculations and deductions, but at least 1 solution does exist, regardless of our ability to currently solve for it.
The issue with this is that you've misdirected the target. The question is not whether or not the solution that optimizes humanity towards some specific set of goals exists, but whether or not there is an objective unchanging set of goals or criteria to optimize towards. You've begged the question.
In other words, it's not asking if there is a solution to that equation, it's asking if that equation is a 1 size fits all perfect description of whatever thing it's describing mathematically or at least an approximation of that objective thing its an approximation of that thing, or rather, if there is no other equation someone could use to get an equally or more satisfying outcome or use out of.
You have to make the argument that there is some one size fits all set of criteria (an equation) rather than whether or not any such equation can be solved. You can't simply say "well it must exist, it's just really hard to solve for" with that, you actually have to prove that it is real or give compelling evidence for it, and that is where it fails.
tl;Dr, someone can just dissagree with the definition of "good" you used when you said "maximize the good." You must give an objective definition of good with all the specifics utilitarianism would need to hard calculate it and that is impossible.
I too am a bit if a utilitarian and in my view, utilitarianism is unsalvageably morally relative in this way. Some values will be universal, but all will not, and when you factor in game theory, it really gets messy to try to insist it's objective and unchanging.
Is it possible for me to be a moral skeptic and simply hold a personal preference for utilitarianism say, 90% of the time?
9 times out of 10 I opt for a negative utilitarian approach because it feels right to me, to minimize suffering (which I prioritize over maximizing well-being or happiness). I just prefer in every day life to try and minimize the suffering I cause, and advocate for policies that will also minimize suffering - without any notion that there is some objective duty or obligation to do so, or that out there, somewhere, is a "moral fact" written into the fabric of the universe that this is "the right thing to do." Or without necessarily taking the position to its extreme conclusion, i.e. to end all life and therefore all suffering.
Can I still call myself a utilitarian of any sort? It isn't clear to me. If I say I am a utilitarian, does this really entail that I view the minimization of suffering as a "moral duty" and not a personal preference? If I live my life as it if is a personal preference, but not a "moral duty", then what am I? Am I overthinking the distinction between "moral duty" and "personal preference"?
These are questions that the Google has not been really able to answer for me, so, I figured I'd asked someone who clearly identifies as a utilitarian and a moral realist. Thanks!
@@quaidrowan Maybe your answer lies in some numerical factor (even if it is an unknown number/variable) of the "maximizing of well-being" goal, as a non-zero multiplier of the greater goal of minimizing suffering.
I.e.
The greatest goal is minimizing suffering
The second greatest goal is maximizing well-being
The utilitarian best action or imperative might be that minimizing suffering in a way that results in maximal destruction of well-being is not an action that's worth its price.
You might even create a formula for this (to the extent you can quantify wellbeing and suffering):
Utilitarian imperative score = (x * wellbeing) / (suffering) where x is some numerical value greater than zero but less than 1.
It might not get us anywhere other than "to end all life and therefore all suffering" gives us a value of ZERO in my formula but if it clears anyone of their doubts about destroying the universe as a moral imperative to consider then it might be just valuable enough to be a starting point.
WLC is smart enough to know how disingenuous he's being, so it must be intentional.
My guess is that any soul he saves through deception has infinite utility, compared to his finite lies, and probably assumes Jesus will forgive him.
Or to put it simply, he knows it's just a game, and all he cares about is winning points and being on the leaderboard, even if he has to cheat.
Like most people on leaderboards, come to think of it.
Lying for Jesus. I believe it’s more common than we think.
His salary depends on the gullibility of the people who buy his useless books on amazon, donate money to his church & organisation or buy tickets to listen to his bullshit.
I honestly just think he has just deluded himself into thinking whatever he is saying is right. Most other people in the world also do the same with their religion; give factual evidence to a Muslim and they will say it's not true. Indoctrination is a powerful tool.
@@nadim2911 He has an uncanny ability to know exactly what to misrepresent.
"There are objective morals, but they're impossible to discern!"
So... basically they might as well not exist, since we cant prove which ones are which they're no better than subjective morals. Oops!
Stealing may be wrong but I can think of situations where it's justified. For example. My biological "father" was arrested for stealing a tin of beans when I was very young, he literally only did it to feed me and my brothers because we literally had nothing, and as much as I despise my biological "family" of which he is at the very top of my list, I have respect for that act, despite the fact that he was too stupid to get away with it, imo he was fully justified in wanting to feed his children by any means whatsoever, probably the only thing I know of where he actually showed some compassion in his miserable life... 🤦💥
To be fair to the Catholic tradition, they teach the universal destination of all goods which would have justified his actions as well.
I think even in the worst case, you still blame the individuals actions. Take your father's example, you can't say it was impossible to do the right thing in that situation.
How much of their time and their life was spent on providing the security and safety net that would have stopped that dire needed situation? By the sounds of it very little and they deserve your negative emotions.
You might blame systems or specific organizations and situations, but it's my belief that pretty much anyone in this country at least, can avoid a life with crime but it's hard and they choose easy and risky instead.
I think it's fair to say had you stolen the goods you have a right to blame your parents because there is a real responsibility to a child to give them everything they need to grow and learn and develop, and a lack of capacity to make good decisions, but as an adult the responsibility falls on you and it's literally your job to exhaust all efforts to provide and sustain a positive well being. I'm not saying respecting the act is wrong, I'm saying it might be ignoring all the prior acts that lead into it which deserve more of the focus. And I think I can say I have similar family ties, and the worst part is you'll never get an admission of failure or responsibility because the excuses always take the lead.
@@kaugh what if the person was an undiagnosed kleptomaniac?
The entire premise of Robin Hood.
"Wanting to feed his children by any means whatsoever."
What about getting a job, making money, and paying for food? Or offering to help around the store he stole from for the equivalent of the cost of the beans?
I still don't get how objective moral standards can come from any deity.
Doesn't objective mean that the moral standards would exist even if the deity didn't?
or the deity created those morals, in which case it's subjective. so yes, it's stupid either way. but hey, when did religious folks did not believe it stupid things?
Stephens absolute unrelenting sass that comes through in his editing is entertaining af
form over content
Even assuming a god existed, and was the author of an objective moral code, we would still be faced with the problem of such a god providing such code in the form of a book that has been maintained exclusively by humans for centuries, without any guarantee that no severe errors accumulated over time, or that the text was not knowingly manipulated by people with specific interests, or even that said god is the actual original author of the text to begin with.
All those problems could so easily be solved by an all powerful god, it's really surprising to face such trivial issues.
Issues that could very well be explained if such texts were authored by ordinary humans.
Yeah, no one has ever been able to answer my question of what ties the Bible to the Abrahamic god.
Because the existence of a being that has the property of being undetectable unless he decides to reveal himself, which he rarely does, is impossible to disprove his existence … so if there is a god how do you know the Bible has anything to do with him|her|them|it?
So far as I can tell, the only link is that the Bible says it’s the authoritative source… and this is essentially how Christians answer my question, well that and faith.
@@nine3502 : precisely.
Can't help it this reminded me young earth apologists insisting that genetic mutations are as they accumulate always wrong. Yet they insist on infallibility of a book rewritten by hand hundreds of times accumulating errors in similar fashion. Funny.
@@nine3502 In my experience, Christians would appeal to prophecies, miracles, and personal experience to tie the Bible to God. And, yes, faith.
It is amazing how reliably and conclusively that positing that it is humans misunderstanding things, lying, and making things up easily resolves otherwise incredibly difficult to resolve issues with statements and positions in all religions.
I remember watching a debate between WLC and Christopher Hitchens. At the end, when they opened the discussion up to questions from the audience, a young fella said that God has come to him in a dream the night before and told him that homosexuality was just as beautiful as heterosexuality. WLC scoffed at the dude and dismissed the comment as though the guy was clearly messing with him. No addressing the comment at all - just a handwave and move on to the next person.
WLC isn't interested in the truth.
I think Sam Harris was Craig's opponent that day.
Dreams only matter to them when their god tells them what they already want to believe 🙄
Theist here. Good video. Gives some great arguments that we theists need to consider and deal with within our belief.
"These ain't trivial disagreements."
Well said.
Imagine a person drives through a town with no speed limits. They are stopped by the sheriff and informed they are driving too fast and the sheriff then shoots the driver as punishment for disobeying the rules.
Imagine another person drives through the same town but this time the town has a sign saying “Drive at an appropriate speed”. The driver drives at what they believe is an appropriate speed. They are stopped by the sheriff and informed they are driving too fast and the sheriff then shoots the driver as punishment for disobeying the rules.
Imagine a third person goes through a town and this time the town has many signs all with different speed limits on them. The driver chooses to obey one of the speed limits. They are stopped by the sheriff and informed they are driving too slow and the sheriff then shoots the driver as punishment for disobeying the rules.
If a system doesn’t spell out the rules, or the rules are vague or they are contradictory or the punishment is excessive, then that system is grossly unjust. Or at least that’s what my intuition tells me.
Sounds like america
But that sheriff had personal contact number but you refused to call because you never saw him.
Ps: its still not late. You can call him now.
@@Directlite664 the driver had been given a lot of phone numbers for the sheriff by various people. Each one claimed that this was the number and not to use any other. He tried calling some of them but got no reply.
@@balhus799
Call sincerely with an open heart. Just say this, 'ooh God, if you are there i love you. Please guide me. '
Do this now and tell me what you feel. Btw, you will never see God, but you can start feeling his presence. Thats the best we can expect.
@@Directlite664 given the God of Christian Theology is supposed to be omnipotent, Omnibenevolent and omnipresent, a “presence” is not the best we should expect. And certainly not a “presence” I am told is God by other human beings. Humans are fallible, they can lie, misunderstand or naively believe want other people tell them. They would be terrible messengers for this supposed supernatural entity and yet they are the only ones I have come across. This is what I was alluding to with my “sheriff” analogy.
Yay! "Single Christians" Ad at the beginning 😂
If only they were single in their views on morality :P
Booo, bad joke, I know
Hook up with the single Christians and challenge their views from within!
Hey, don't knock christian dating sites. They provide a very valuable service to the normies who date people.
That service being giving people the ability to ask "Do you have a profile on OnlyChristiansSingleMingle?" and give you advance warning to run the fuck away if they say yes.
Let's hope they stay that way /s
I just love that this means that they are vicariously paying Steve to educate people about the truth behind religion.
Intuition varys from person to person because it's a culmination of experience. The Objective morality argument fails because our perception of the world is subject. The fact that many of us tend to reach similar conclusions is merely a byproduct of our shared experience. Anything that's "moral" is so because we all agree... Or at least the majority do. Morality is subject until we decide to make it objective.
15:08 To be fair, if one has access to mauling bears I'm sure that quickly becomes the intuitive solution to just about everything.
😆 🤣 😂 underrated comment
Oh hell yes 🤣
I think the answer to moral disagreements is that morality is just this higher emergent property.
And we happen to be interacting with it poorly. Because reality is unfair and we don't understand it.
But we are always pushing towards less immorality over time. And I think immorality is something simple like imposition on will.
We just happen to have stronger intuitions and feelings to certain impositions based on different contexts and practicalities.
I think all the different concepts like accountability, justice, justification, Atonement, punishment, and others just get latched onto morality because we put them onto it.
To say less imposition on will is good is only the case because we seem to prefer that. I wouldn't say there is necessarily a reason that imposition on will is bad instead of good. It's just how we happen to interact with the concept assuming it's imposition on will and not some other concept.
I think our ego keeps adding these other concepts to avoid calling ourselves immoral despite what we really want. A reality where nobody can hurt us and we can't hurt anybody else
It's quite interesting how Rationality Rules digs into those topics. As much as i like his analysis reagarding philosophy and epistemology and the deconstruction of the opponents arguments (and also agree how he does it) for me the intellectual approach to these topics always seem a little like "casting pearls before swines".
Or in other words: I'm a simple man. Anyone who tries to defend slavery, in any way, shape or form, is done for me. You can rename it, you can try to put it in the context of certain times, jada-jada-jada. In the end, WLC is trying to defend the indefendable. Let's not put this fact under a rug of intellecuality or a meaningful debate. Let's state it as it is: WLC and everyone doing the same, has a moral rotten to the core. They may have their reasons to do it, but this doesn't make it right.
The simple reason WLC is not running for office to turn every country back into slavery/indentured servitude just shows, he knows himself that this is an abhorrend viewpoint. If he would truly believe in what his holy bible says he would work towards a world, defined by it. But he doesn't and this tells a lot. The fact they don't believe it doesn't help, because people listening to them may believe it. And this throws decades of progress under the bus. This is playing with fire.
So again, Rationality Rules, thanks for the intellectual approach, thank for the deep down analysis, thanks for thinking stuff throught an put it in pieces of brainfood easy to digest. Sometimes i need this, but sometimes i just like to listen to Sir Sic calling those people for what they are: Morally disfuntional and evil. (and cunts ;) )
Then I hope you enjoy our approach on LowFruit?
@@castlesandcuriosities I'm gonna check it out. Title of their (your?) last video: "The Unholy Trinity of Polished Turds" - oh someone's trying to get my attention - it worked ...
@@castlesandcuriosities oh yes, very much so. Eagerly x 1,000 awaiting the next one. Not to mention more castle stuff. Just love castles .....
The message of the so-called gospel of JC was aimed at the simple men, the down-trodden, the man in the street. Although I appreciate Stephen's philosophical deconstruction of WLC's stuff, I, too am like you Lusti. Simply put, there is no moral justification for some of the serious shit in the bible, and hence Dawkins won't debate Craig on that principle. Therefore, apologetics is basically for smart Christians.
For a man with two terminal degrees, Craig seems to have a schoolboy understanding of how the brain develops and works. While we are born with predictive processes at a genetic level like breathing, digesting etc., much of our intuitive sense in navigating reality comes from undeclared memories (from previous predictive processes in cognitive development) the brain has deemed successful enough to not require conscious scrutiny each time it is utilized. These could be colloquially called habits. Of course when habits are sidelined from the corrective portion of the predictive process, they are immune from modification or disbandment. This is why changing minds is so difficult.
I would suggest that Craig has misplaced his sense of curiosity to the point where he cannot imagine any other explanation other than the one that fits his habitual intuition.
"In the absence of some defeater of that experience, you are perfectly rational to believe that there is an external world."
Wait, did Craig just argue it's perfectly rational to believe something in the absence of good evidence or arguments (i.e. you'd also be perfectly rational to believe that Allah, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, etc. exists)?
The defeater is that you'd have to believe a whole lot of other contradictory things too if you follow that epistemology.
But sure, contingent on God's existence (which I don't accept), I'm happy to accept that objective morality exists (by definition, pretty much). It's just that no-one can know for sure what that is, which renders the claim somewhat pointless.
That’s interesting. I’m agnostic to God’s existence, but I’m doubtful that objective morality would exist even if God does. Say we knew for sure that God exists and that he gave us his opinions on how we ought to conduct ourselves. If someone were to ask, “Why ought I to obey God?” and if objective moral laws could only come from God, then the only valid response would be, “Because God commanded us to obey him.” This would beg the question, though. I suppose one could argue that objective moral laws come from God and other sources. I don’t know. What do you think?
Logically pointless, but SOPHISTically useful in a manipulative way. Because a self-deluded person may then turn around and say "You cannot question me, you are questioning the very fabric of morality which is not morality itself so only through my crazy antics can you be considered moral which thus always justifies why I should take power from you."
@@averagejoe2232 Yes, that is the issue of objective and absolute morality. If such a thing exists, then it by definition has to be absent of any being's whims; Meaning that if it hinges on what a God says or thinks is moral, it is neither objective nor absolute.
@@OzixiThrill Right! Has any theist addressed this? I hear C. S. Lewis’s Moral Argument all the time, but none of them seem to ask how certain preferences are objective laws just because they are held by the greatest possible being.
@@averagejoe2232 The way I see it: The claim goes that God created humanity to serve him and follow his commandments. Our purpose would thus be, by definition and objectively, to do that. We could of course reject this purpose, but it seems fair to call that objective morality.
It's probably also fair to not call that objective morality. It may just be semantics.
Within Christian theology, one of the primary purposes of moral laws are to show us that we continually fail to meet them. This is true of all people. If you had an invisible voice recorder that documented every time you made a moral judgment of what someone should do, and were judged against that, you would stand condemned. The law humbles us and shows us that we are not superior to anyone. We all need grace.
No, no, no! You've got it all wrong. All those rules we don't like anymore are part of the "old law" that was fulfilled by Jesus.
Except for the parts we like. Those we can still persecute people we don't like with.
Also nevermind the part where Jesus say he was not going to change one iota, one jot or tittle of the law.
The old covenant contained both the moral law and the ceremonial law. Christ upheld both parts, fulfilling the ceremonial law and affirming the moral law. Ceremonial law contains things like the pesky law about the mixed fabrics. Moral law is summed up in the ten commandments.
@@guyroszel7584 But how you figure out what is ceremonial and what is moral?
@@juanausensi499 It's a bit of a deep subject, but in summary the moral law can be found in the ten commandments and the teaching that elaborates on them. They are further summarized by the two great commandments, love God with all your being and love your neighbor as yourself.
The ceremonial law is anything that requires the office of priest to exercise or is related to being ceremonially clean. Christ took that burden on himself through his death burial and resurrection. The letter to the Hebrews talks about this in more detail.
@@guyroszel7584 I'm still feeling that 'deep' means 'open to interpretation'. Am I right?
I haven't skipped the sponsored segment at the beginning because it was very entertaining. Good job 👍
If it is so difficult to understand objective morality, what's its point? If we have to rely on our judgement to tell the good interpretation of "objective morality" from the bad interpretation "objective morality", why not rely on our judgement in the first place, unencumbered by the "metaphorical" riddles thrown at us by some ancient scripture?
I was thinking that myself. Let's say 'objective morality' exists. But we don't know it and we also don't know how to even start to search for it. So, we rely on our intuitions and agreements on a daily basis. So, what benefit the belief in 'objective morality' has?
@@juanausensi499 Objective morality would provide comfort to those who think it could be a problem if we have any choice over what the best morality is. However, if it is just as hard to find as any other morality that is at least as good then, as you say, what is the point?
WLC's words get larger the weaker his position is. It's almost like he's trying to obfuscate when he has no reasonable answer, and I'm sure the audience can see that also.
almost like comment section of this channel hehe
I don't believe that Craig could have engaged with Atheists and philosophers in debate and discussions for as long as he has without understanding points made against him. In a written debate against a philosopher on the topic of causality (if anyone have the name, I'd be grateful), he ended up saying that since the current understandings of causality not being able to account for god creating the universe, that meant that god is a counterexample for how those theories of causality were wrong. And how he has repatedly stated that reason is to 'serve the Gospel like a handmaiden' instead of 'lord over it like a magistrate' (Reasonable Faith, I believe, as well as some of his lectures).
He's encountered most arguments against his positions countless times and that's just in his public engagement. He's probably encountered most arguments within an academic setting as well, if only because he probably had to engage prior to becoming the famous bigshot apologist. Yet his arguments never seem to change or in any way adapt to criticism, despite some of the flaws in his position being glaringly obvious even to people without better qualifications than a passing interest in the topics.
I don't think Craig is stupid. I don't even think Craig is so blinded by his faith that he can't see the validity in the arguments made against his. I think he knows that his arguments and deflections only work against strawmen. His self-described journey to faith wasn't about evidence and he has said that should the evidence turn against christianity, he hopes he has the faith to continue believing anyway (Reasonable Faith). Contrary evidence towards christianity is an obstacle to be overcome, not something to seriously consider.
Craig is an apologist first, second and third. As much as he loves to go on about being a philosopher, that too is just an extention of his apologism. And what is his job as an apologist? First and foremost it is to comfort the doubts of christians. To assure them that there are reasons to dismiss the doubting thoughts and, if nothing else, stem the tide of people leaving the church.
That is why he has to misunderstand the points so confidently, because he needs to distract the believers from a point that might make them question their faith.
Craig's arguments are definitely aimed at comforting believers who revel in their righteousness, since nearly every non-believer is still a non-believer because even the most basic questions are left unanswered by the apologists. If it were only complex esoteric topics or subtle discrepancies that were the issue they might well be overlooked. But no... the apologists can't even make basic tenets like objective morality work without appealing to common sense which is not objective (or common) at all. The circumstances of life are too complex and diverse for universally applicable absolutes, and it's just laughable and insanely absurd for Craig and his ilk to claim there is an objective morality that they are thoroughly incapable of defining. But their incompetence at understanding God's morals doesn't keep them from claiming they know what God thinks. It's incomprehensible that they can have such certainty in concepts that are so vague. It seems to be nothing less than wishful thinking brought on by an irrational fear of uncertainty. Of course paranoia is the hallmark of the fundamentalist Christian.
Let's get this video huge (HUUUGE!) engagement!
Please tell me the guy being attacked by the bear is okay. Please?
This is a great break down of this topic, well done!
This video was a long time coming, I've noticed Craig has been off these past two years. Like he's become more desperate and extreme, maybe its his old age or his fading irrelevance but the fact remains. He is going off the deep end and it is actually both scary and saddening to watch.
I don’t know if anyone has read “Why I Became an Atheist” by John W. Loftus. This author used to be William Lane Craig’s student. One of the best books on atheism. I highly recommend it.
Have you ever looked at the "AskAlpha" course material? I went for their taster session at the beginning of the year out of curiosity but never followed up. I am sure there would be some very interesting stuff to debunk in there though. The founder likes to mention "logic" a lot and frames it as if Christianity is the "logical choice"
The hell observation is precisely correct. I am a devout Christian and see this same inconsistency in traditional Christianity. Thanks for challenging our assumptions and beliefs man. Truth comes out when we wrestle with all that is given to us.
Ok the sponsor bit was really funny and well done lol
I can't help but laugh whenever Craig says, "objective moral doodies".
It's nice of Bill to point out the failure of religions himself when it comes to morality: interpretation. You have no way of showing what is objectively moral, making it completely useless and you have to rely on subjective and relative secular morality to make any useful moral statement. The problem is easily shown by the different religions and interpretations that lead to splits in churches and the increase beyond just one denomination.
Also, objective morality is useless when what is moral changes with context, which it does. Letting someone die is only moral or immoral depending on the circumstances. So even if objective morals existed we would still have to figure out how it applies in all infinite different contextual situations. Religions provide no such guide or moral principle to judge things by. The well being of people is merely a skewed interpretation of well established patterns in holy texts that show the well being of people to be the least important and worship and belief and the limiting of freedoms of people who aren't cis, hetero males to be the most important.
So in that light the progress of countries where well being has increased for all people are being horribly immoral blasphemers for the way they exist and have progressed. Well being for all people is a secular idea that actually works as a basis for moral principles.
In other words: religion has no basis to make any moral claims and no way of knowing how to apply morality in any given situation and secular morality has a functional basis that is rooted in demonstrable facts about our existence and it has ways and a freedom to apply morality in any given situation. We don't just have to guess what a god wants with no way of testing if we're correct and adapting our morality. We can just look at patterns in the past and present and see what works.
For instance, if no one is harmed by your sexuality and gender for instance then people should leave those the fuck alone. People are demonstrably harmed by people meddling in other people's sexuality and gender with bigotry and laws that limit people's rights to love and marry who they want or have their bodies to themselves instead of having to share it with someone else. Giving people those freedoms that should've never been taken away harms no one. Limiting those freedoms for people does.
Just compare that to the useless lists of overly specific, useless shit in "holy" texts. Celebrate the sabbath. Why? Fucking WHY? Don't eat yeast on the sabbath. Why? Kill those men who lay with a man as they do with a woman. Why? Don't boil a baby goat in it's mother's milk. Fine, I'll use the milk of the goat of my neighbours, but FFS, why not? There is no reason given, no pattern to discover besides: the narcissist wants arbitrary shit from you without giving a reason or a way to figure it out and if you fuck up you'll be executed and it's YOUR fault because you suck as is dictated by the gaslighting.
My example was just that: an example. And it's easy to figure out the pattern to use in other contexts: if limiting freedoms harms people and letting people have those freedoms harms no one, then let them fucking have those freedoms and fuck off with your obsolete, and archaic logic! Let my people go!
And apologist claim that God is good and define good as God's nature which is just means God is being Godly.
Objective moral values have a huge gray area... so they're open to interpretation and can change in time? So they're basically subjective? Amazing observation by William "Low bar" Lame Craig
It's a trend much bigger than Lane. And more dangerous.
Here's the issue I have; the same intuition I have that torturing babies is immoral that WLC appeals to in order to support the moral argument, is the same intuition that tells me a being who commands children to be slaughtered in the Bible is immoral, thus I am left either affirming the moral argument or denying Christianity to be true.
Are you going to reply to Humane Hancock on your previous video? Super curious about his objections, which seem to be of the strongest I've seen!
I've received quite a few responses, so I might do a live-stream type of response at some point in which I'll touch upon multiple comments. There's been lots of great points that have altered my views, but also a lot of misunderstanding that'll be worth clearing up.
@@rationalityrules Awesome, that’s great to hear! Looking forward to it!
I love the fact that I just found you and I already am gonna watch the video twice so complex
I don't know why people say that Yahweh flip-flopped on slavery... he's never said it was immoral, so he can't be said to have changed his mind!
Indeed, when was the last time we heard a press release about him having changed his stance on slavery over the last 2000 years?
Lol imo, YHWH is a computer that traps and enslaves souls, what is he going to say about slavery.
It’s far far far simpler than this.
Theists claim: god decided what is moral
If an entity has decided what is moral then this is the opposite of objectivity.
I love how smart Craig sounds until you actually listen to him. Thanks for the reminder.
I appreciate how you point out the misogyny of these foundational philosophers.
Has Craig ever actually proven that "objective moral values and duties" DO exist?
Not Craig, not anyone in the history of humanity.
No one has proven it, but I definitely believe in it. It automatically gives life inherent meaning when it's true. Postmodernists often have problems with searching for meaning because they don't accept the idea of objective moral values and duties on faith. No one says they have to, but they often feel lost as a consequence of this refusal.
@@theboombody Since Craig's moral argument for his god is based on the existence of objective morals, if he can't prove them, his argument is flawed - agreed?
@@theboombody Believing in them doesn't help unless you know what those morals are. In fact, it is worse, because now you believe there is a fixed moral code that you shoul follow, but you don't know what is it, so you are probably doing wrong things all the time. But if you don't think those objective morals exist, then it also means you are not doing anything wrong.
In order to the belief in objective morals feeling positive, you must also believe that you have found them. So my question is, have you found them? If so, what are they? If not, why believing in them doesn't make you more worried?
@@JMUDoc If you want to say his argument proves God, and he can't prove that morality is objective, then yeah, I would say his proof has failed. That's why I never try to PROVE God is real. I don't think it can be done. But, like I said, the belief gives direction, commitment, and purpose, and the postmodernists often have a difficult time with those things.
These videos are sorta my epistemological ASMR 😆 Thank you!
Keep up the great work man!
The real question that seems to be answered oh so many times seems to be 'What can i say that doesnt make me look like i wouldnt know the answer'
Isn't is funny that WLC has been using the same moral arguments for his whole life and he cannot specifically list the actual moral values or duties or obligations, and nobody has ever challenged him to list them.
Great Video! I love that your humor came through in the edit :)
I simply intuited that Craig was using sophistry.
Saves having to do all that logic stuff.
I'm still stuck on the MLK response when someone asked why he thought girls matured physically faster than boys "Same reason why weeds grow faster than roses". Umm...what?
So they can get at the sunlight quicker than the surrounding plants?
To be clear, it was NOT Martin Luther King who said this. It was Martin Luther. An unfortunate typo.
So Craig says that he makes no claim that morals are easy to discern, yet he bases his absolutist morals on some cases beeing sooo obviously imoral that they can be said to groung the absolute values? That seems a little, well... 😬
Craig knows which moral imperatives are obvious - the ones that are obvious to him, obviously 🙄
I wouldn't say *failure* to distinguish between native and foreign slaves, so much as *refusal* - it's not only inconvenient, it's utterly incompatible with our modern sensibilities, and so, because God is moral, it *can't have existed at all*
Anyone else think that WLC could have a pantomime career playing Widow Twankey? Just throwing it out there.
Craig has gaslit himself. He's got his talking points, he's extrapolated them for years, and now he's so far down the rabbit hole he's about to reach China.
Here the answer:
There are no right or wrong.
Just opinions.
And that doesnt make them less valued. We need as a soceity get together and create a subjective consensus of our moral opinions.
Yeah, we've been trying that for ten millennia now and we seem as far apart as we ever were. Good luck with that.
Craig's moral grey area/moral learning argument is rendered mute by the direct action of God in drowning almost every living thing, including puppies, kittens and pregnant women. If everything god does is moral, and some of that god's actions are more murderous than stalin, pol pot and Hitler, then the only real moral judgement is whether an act is performed in the name of that particular god.
It could be argued that God is not subject to the ethics of human law. If God exists then he is the one who authorized the creation of life, so would it be immoral of him to annul life as he wishes? In a sense it could be said that God "owns" us and gets to do with us as he chooses.
@@MrEVAQ you're only digging the hole deeper. If god owns us, and explicitly sanctions slavery, then anti-slavery christians are arrogantly trying to replace god's perfect judgement with their own.
Now, I think I will go enjoy some oysters, without having to pretend to be doing something immoral.
Love your product link narration, probably the best I have heard.
Last time I was here this early, I was writing a book.
Now, I am still writing that same book.
Theological epistemology and ontology, even in fantasy, is hard.
But the only thing that has stayed the same between these two points of time, is I think William Lane Craig is an overrated apologist.
Just wanted to say that your advertisement is so nicely done I was trapped and couldn't skip it :D
When it comes to the claim that god wrote morally on our hearts, if always wondered what that means for psychopaths, did god just forget to write the morals on their hearts?
6:35 "It's not clear what our moral values are, or what the moral duty is for us to do". Facepalm! According to Craig we have a duty to follow an objective set of rules. But those rules are only clear in literally 2 or 3 cases out of billions of possible circumstances where morality need be applied.
So let me get this straight:
* There's an objective set of rules
* We have a duty to follow those rules
* It's not clear what those rules are
What a nothing-burger of an argument.
And remember - the moral argument is an argument for the existence of God. This makes the whole thing a double-facepalm. Summary:
* Craig: "My evidence for God is that objective moral duties exist"
* Questioner: "If objective moral duties exist, why does morality change massively over time? It seems like objective moral duties don't actually exist"
* Craig: "It's not clear what our moral values are"
So his evidence that God exists is that objective moral duties exist. And when questioned about objective moral duties he replies that it's not clear that they do exist, but even though it seems like they don't exist we should just trust him that they do. Very convincing argument there, Bill.
We all know the argument is circular. Bill only believes objective moral duties exist because he believes God exists.
If a 6 stone woman saw a hulk of a man raping a child by Craig's morality she should walk away even if she was armed
@@gowdsake7103 I think you’re being too kind to Craig’s perspective here. Under his perspective the woman should… we don’t know! It’s not clear what the moral duties she must follow are.
If a bunch of school kids were bullying another school kid we should… it’s not clear.
You can repeat this for almost every conceivable situation and Craig’s answer is the same… it’s not clear what the moral duties are. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist, and we’re still obliged to follow these duties… whatever they happen to be.
The only things people making the moral argument for God can really point to as universally wrong are murder and stealing. Which is hilarious given the bible has untold number of times where God committed or commanded murder. Often so the Israelites could steal the land of the people they were “perfectly morally” obliterating. So according to Craig these duties and values so exist. It’s not clear what they are except for a few instances. And what Craig would tell you are the clear-cut instances, they conflict directly with the actions and commands of God.
What a ridiculous argument it is.
This is why WLC doesn't do discussions, only debates.
He can get away with the last word in debates.
Yes his discussion with Sir Roger Penrose on Unbelieveable Radio was not very impressive, was it?
He doesn't get away with the last word though does he? He virtually always allows the opposition to have the last word. Have you ever watched one of his debates?
Any chance you could put a brief description of the content of the video in the description box? I think it's nice to have an overview of the topic before diving into a video with such a generic title.
Good point. Will also consider a different title. Cheers
Added: In this video I object to a response that Dr. William Lane Craig gives to a potent moral question, while simultaneously emphasising tension and inconsistency between the two methods of acquiring moral knowledge that Craig defends.
@@rationalityrules - Noice!
I especially like the third argument about retro-fitting the bable into individual moral intuitions. Jordan Peterson really put logic upside down with his assertion that all atheists "really are theists on the inside", when it is so clearly the opposite that can be observed over and over: every faith-follower is inevitably at some point separating the "literal" from the "metaphoric" to suit some of their preconceived principles (or to rationalize their past decisions...)
The real issue behind the morality changes over time thing, is that those 'clear cut' examples he mentions were reached by consensus. We say its objectively always wrong to torture babies because we all agree on that, not because there has been any sort of objective demonstration. If you rely on consensus to reach 'objective' positions, then our ability to change the consensus over time essentially means that objective morality will change over time too.
Also, I still maintain that objective morality is useless. Even if you could demonstrate that some moral principle is somehow objective, you would still have to appeal to someone's own personal goals/desires to get them to act in accordance with it. People want objective morality because they want to be able to force others to act a specific way, but that wouldn't even work.
When WLC says slavery was only indentured servitude, Isn’t that bearing false witness?
Don't you have to have morality for it to collapse?
HUUUUUGE thank you for making another great video ;D
One of the foremost responses you'll get from Christians to the challenge of morphing objective morality is some vague thing about humans being ready for various stages of moral instruction. It's weak for two reasons: Omnipotence and, when we look at the specifics, we really can't see, even without the omnipotence (the god's ability to simply communicate a thing by whatever means, including restructuring the brain if needed), the reasons for the difficulty in many cases. A better tack may exist outside the realm of logical checkmating, which is to feature for the Christian certain tenets that seem to stem directly from human intuition in its more clearly fallible moves. Cutting the hand off of a wife who touched another man's junk is just such a tenet . We start with jealousy/insecurity. Then add the unscientifically educated mind, that thinks that the point of contact is where the memory of the touch (and presumably the sexual attraction) is housed (we project this phenomenon because pleasurable sensations exist in parts of the body for some period after the contact that created them, and we sometimes unintentionally re-instigate said feelings in specific parts of the body upon memory of the contact). Walla, cut the hand off. The prohibition against people with deformities, missing limbs, cripples, etc., from entering the holy tent of meeting (during the exodus) is such a tenet. It not only makes this determination and not only calls these things detestable, but the text actually declares them detestable in the eyes of God. This is projection of human, evolutionary sense onto an omnipotent being, for whom no such discomfort is possible (being omnipotent). Such "intuition" stems from our weakness - it's clearly a vulnerability, an avoidance impulse with evolutionary roots and, what's more, mere mortals can overcome it with the slightest amount of extended exposure to said individuals. This tenet is so important because it's not only declared, but the reason for it is, and the reason is in the mind of the God. The misstep likely stems from the fact that the early belief was not of omnipotence, but of super huge power (two very different things). The super powerful can be weak. The omnipotent cannot, and hasn't any reason for the slightest distaste.
Bruv the first ad I've actually enjoyed hahahaha. Brilliant and, so fitting. God yes
How can you read the bible and come up with morals?
Bravo 👏 12 years ago I came across William Lane Craig when I was Mormon. Well, I think he is sincere, his philosophies really create a lot of moral confusion. Like if you’re a believer, they kind of true… But they don’t translate into anything practical. And push you further into the web of delusion.
Steven, "Thou shalt not murder" is not true by definition like a "unmarried bachelor" is. By claiming this you are falling into the same trap as WLC is in appealing to our intuitions. Whether or not murder is unlawful has nothing to do with whether it is right or wrong to do it. If that were the case it would have, for most of history, been immoral to have been homosexual.
Murder is per definition unlawful. Saying unlawful and murder is like saying unmarried bachelor. That's why he made this point.
@@hsl7168 but that isn't what he said. Watch again 12:05 to 12:18. Steven specifically states "thou shall not murder" is "true by definition" and is not a "moral intuition". He gives no evidence for this, in effect it is an appeal to our intuitions.
Thus morality is always subjective
@@Pete_1986 these are analytical terms, because they are legal terms, which have been established to describe unlawful acts. This is not about whether the law is morally correct or not. Therefore, the moral- "not grey area" in the bible is build on weak descriptions, which state the obvious.
To me WLC is a narcisist, and I am not talking about tendencies, I mean he actually has NPD.
Just look at how he begins to address the point, "This illustrates the failure". Even if the question was misplaced or wrong... Look at how easily he tries to put him down. He is literally above him, being that he is the one with the platform, but literally and figuratively. And he begins by punching down. Discrediting the other person, way before even attempting to answer.
This is a pattern that I have noticed a lot. He almost always starts by poisoning the well and or even downright throwing insults. Before he addresses any point, he always tries to discredit the source.
Also there is always this air of condescending attitude. Look how he talks to him like "failure to distinguish between moral ontology and moral epistomology". Notice how he presuposes that the one that made the question knows nothing about the topic. Look how he talks to him, with a condescending tone the whole tiem.
Also, the question was never antagonisthic. But look how defensive he often gets, he treats everyone that is even curious as opposition.
Also, Look how often he tries to show how intelectually superior he is, rather than addressing any criticism.
He often wants to put others down, and put himself up. Not winning by argumentation but by claiming intellectual superiority and or tauting his credentials and accomplishments.
To me it is clear that he has NPD, and the more I see him the more I think it is true. That doesn't mean he is wrong mind you. Unlike him, I am not saying this to discredit him. It is just something I have observed and one of the reasons I find him very hard to watch. I love hearing people I do not agree with, it is something I have always done. So it is not about what he says. But his arrogance, makes it really hard for me to watch.
Are you going to talk to Ask Yourself regarding veganism? His comment on your last video is one of the most liked, but I can't see that you've responded.
Yeah, very likely. I'm also interested in speaking with Perspective Philosophy and a few other vegan content creators. Ideally, I'd like to do so after creating a video titled "The best argument for veganism" in which I'll provide what is, by my lights, the most convincing argument for veganism. As much as I've appreciated the responses so far, I've honestly been quite frustrated by how many vegans (not including the two mentioned above) have interpreted me as somehow claiming veganism to be unsubstantiated, endorsing Social Darwinism, and defending the "Crop Death Tho" argument. Hopefully a further video and a few conversations will fix the bad communication / bad interpretations.
It’s definitely something shameful and disproportionately true, vegan misunderstandings and elitism. I’m a vegan, but I wasn’t fucking born a vegan. I think I’m right and I’m happy to talk about it, but I can’t stand the way too many vegans look down their noses at omnivores like they, too, weren’t raised in a society that consumes farmed or hunted meat as a staple.
@@rationalityrules Hey man, the recent cosmicskeptic debacle reminded me of this comment. I would still really like to see a conversation with yourself and Ask Yourself. Do you still plan on doing this?
Always thought provoking with a little sarcasm thrown in for good measure thanks
WLC makes me reach for a sick bag every time I hear him.
Hey Steven,
I always appreciate your videos, the level of intellectual honesty is always mind blowing, and I greatly enjoy the content.
May I just point something out. VPNs do encrypt traffic, but https traffic (the most used by 99% of websites) is already encrypted. So the only thing you are hiding when you use a VPN is to which websites you are talking to. And you are only hiding that from your ISP and revealing it to the VPN provider (which can be more shady than the ISP, specially given GDPR regulations).
I understand that you are sponsored and that this is important for your channel, but recommending VPNs like that is very miss leading to the general audience.I also don't fault you for not knowing this until now.
Anyway, the content is still amazing, keep up the good work.
Appreciate the info, ty :)
6:18 Stephen - Dr Craig is the master of conveniently missing the point. He does it on every question he's asked these days. The man loves knocking down straw men, and he doesn't care how remote the straw man is from the question that was actually asked.
An appeal to revelation is nothing more than am appeal to the claimed intuition of an individual that has never been demonstrated to exist, much less actually have opinions.
I feel that to sell any VPN as offering "technical invisibility" is unsound. Unless you incorporate some kind of MAC address ghosting tools and guarantee to your satisfaction that there is nobody, including your VPN provider taking logs. Just for starters.
TH-cam has moved to mind reading… haven’t seen your videos in a while and was thinking about it today… very logical 😘