ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ย. 2024
- Thaumazein, episode 2
New Atheism is famous the world over for its bold critiques of religion. But an important question arises: do its proponents grasp the definition of God as defended by classical theism?
You can find my writing (which I personally think to be far more interesting than what I say here…!) on Substack at admoni.substac.... You can also support me financially there with your subscription, which will soon give you access to exclusive content not available for free readers. You have all my gratitude.
Theists don't understand their gods much either.
@@williamoarlock8634 in many cases I have to admit yes. There is a large number that often do just treat God like king of the world, powerful man in the sky. Alas.
@@admoni. 'God is spirit' being the windbag John Lennox answer and 'spirit' is also non-existent as far as I'm concerned.
God willing your channel will grow. I see potential since your audio is good.
@@fij715 You’re very kind! Thank you so much. I’ve actually been worried about the audio because I have a cheap mic which picks up a lot of static, so it’s encouraging to hear it’s good for listeners.
My man. Youve got that faith of a mustard seed to move mountains. Yet still can move the mountains of evidence against god. Yes little g.
@@Lucifersphoton Thank you for watching and for your kind comment!
No, all i need to know is no one has presented evidence that satisfies a scientific standard. Do you need to know how a car works to know one is not in the parking lot?
Hi - I'm curious as to why you've decided that all knowledge is valid only by the measure of a scientific standard. Even that claim itself is clearly not scientific. There are many basic questions that cannot be answered according to a scientific standard. So I wonder whether you might have a look at some of the presuppositions entailed in your thought.
I am intrugued that you cannot demonstrate that any god thing has ever existed with at least some valid and verified evidence.
You also forgot to demonstrate that anything supernatural ever existed. You are simply defining some god thing into existence. That is a completely circular argument and pointless.
You keep making unsupported assertions as if they had any relationship to what is true.
Do you care if what you are posting is actually true?
@@niblick616 I can only assume that by valid and verified evidence that you mean scientific-empirical evidence. To try and show you that this does not exhaustively account for things that exist, I’d like you to explain how you can prove that truth exists using a scientific experiment.
@@admoni. What other sort of valid and verified evidence is there? Can you demonstrate anything else exists in our shared reality?
Truth is what comports to reality. Reality is what my dog demonstrably exists in and is confirmed by multiple independent corroboration or MIC. Reality does not include anything supernatural and nobody has ever demonstrated that anything other than the natural has ever existed.
I'd like you to explain how you can prove that truth exists outside the natural world.
You have defined an anonymous god thing into existence in a presuppositional manner and you have not provided a complete and self-consistent description of what you are calling 'god'. I invite you to do so.
Notably, you have also not provided a simple list of that thing's supposed attributes and capabilities. Without any attributes and capabilities, it does not exist in our reality.
Is your variety of a god thing, a thinking agent that interacts with the observable universe in any detectable way?
What is your views and take on upanishads and vedanta?
@@maha-madpedo-gayphukumber1533 I love Vedanta. Although my bhakti is Christian in nature rather than Vaishnava, my metaphysics really are very similar to Vishishadvaita. And the main Vedantic texts of the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, and Brahma Sutras are some of the most important books I’ve ever read
It is easy to get a misconception of god, because theists make up their version in their heads everyday.
Fortunately some abandoned it with Santa Claus and the tooth fairy at some point in their lives along with your angels, demons, talking donkeys and flying horses.
@@2msystems740 Hello my friend-I happened to have touched on this critique in the video. Have a look at 5:30 onward. It’s important to ask whether you’re really being charitable to the position at hand, rather than just attacking a strawman.
@@admoni.
Didn't get that far, didn't need to.
@@2msystems740 I would recommend listening to the opinions of other people. It’s an important life skill and makes the discussion of these kinds of topics far more interesting for you. Plus in just the same way I imagine you’d want theists to listen to your opinion rather than just dismissing it out of hand.
@@admoni.
Agree, but thought your opinions were something new.
It just regurgitation.
@@2msystems740 Based on your first comment, my opinion is new. If you understand theism to be nothing but the belief in some invisible man in the sky, just the same kind of belief as you’d have in big foot or a fairy, then that’s precisely what I’m trying to distance myself from.
That first argument I add a twist bc honestly it's either all or nothing and if it's only yours then substantiate your claim that yours exist/best/perfect for everyone/and all others are fake but honestly I don't come in to debate his existence I more or less question why I should follow so in a sense I probably debate against "bad theism"
Hi there! Yes, I definitely agree that if you're claiming your god to be just one superior/perfect god amongst many other possible gods, then you'll need to substantiate why you believe that. But the beauty of the likes of Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Judaism, Hinduism, etc. is that all of them are generally talking about the same infinite Reality, albeit under different and contradicting forms of revelation.
you make very weak arguments i'm afraid. you seem smart and well-educated but you clearly set out to disprove "atheistic discourse" (which by the way you seem to have not spent a whole lot of time studying considering how simplified you lay it out) and wrote your script accordingly. you're not thinking here, you're preaching.
nevertheless i appreciate the effort you put in the video: good sound, good image quality, good slicing, no annoying music,etc...
@@dracaufeu44 Hi there! Thank you for taking the time to watch and give feedback. It’s much appreciated.
I’d be curious to hear why you think the arguments are weak/based on preaching rather than thinking. I’ve tried to use those two arguments (used by Dawkins, Hitchens, etc.) at the outset to highlight the primary misunderstanding that lies behind New Atheism: namely, that God is just a being amongst beings, presiding over a ‘celestial North Korea’ (Hitchens) contained as a discrete entity within the immanent fold of existence. With the change of metaphor-from dominos to light-I tried to elucidate something more faithful to the theisms of classical traditions, and then reiterated how the misunderstanding might be clarified by a reading of Dawkins’ critique of Aquinas’ viae. Although, being a YT video, it lacks the rigour of an academic essay, I don’t think I’ve necessarily neglected to make a case responding to issues identified in New Atheist rhetoric.
But again-thank you so much for engaging with the channel. Hope you return for future videos. All the best!
@@admoni. i don't really have the time to answer in detail but i will say shortly that i think: maybe in an attempt to disprove new atheism altogether (also maybe driven by ideology) you essentialize the "new atheistic ideology" to provocative catchphrases (that the new atheists are guilty of uttering way too often, maybe in an attempt to sound provocative). But really the New Atheists idelogy is nothing new: it is an aggregate of positivism (1800s) -or even you could argue logical positivism (early 1900s) + skepticism (even older than the former). admittedly these ideas are not very fashionable philosophical discourse in academia (to say the least) but they do still require research to counter. all the additional claims (which are a lot of what their arguments consist of) that new atheists make rely on ethical/ generally epistemological/historical points that are also generally valid.
anyway i suscribe, curious to see what you'll do next
Hello. I am an atheist. I define atheism as suspending any acknowledgment as to the reality of any particular god until sufficient credible evidence is presented. My position is that *_I currently have no good reason to acknowledge the reality of any god._*
And here is why I currently hold to such a position. Below are 11 facts I must consider when evaluating the claim made by certain theists that a particular god exists in reality. To be clear, these are not premises for any argument which _concludes_ there to be no gods. These are simply facts I must take into account when evaluating the verity of such a claim. If any of the following facts were to be contravened at a later time by evidence, experience, or sound argument, I would THEN have good reason to acknowledge such a reality.
1. I have never been presented with a functional definition of a god.
2. I personally have never observed a god.
3. I have never encountered any person who has claimed to have observed a god.
4. I know of no accounts of persons claiming to have observed a god that were willing or able to demonstrate or verify their observation for authenticity, accuracy, or validity.
5. I have never been presented with any _valid_ logical argument, which also introduced demonstrably true premises that lead deductively to an inevitable conclusion that a god(s) exists in reality.
6. Of the many logical syllogisms I have examined arguing for the reality of a god(s), I have found all to contain a formal or informal logical fallacy or a premise that can not be demonstrated to be true.
7. I have never observed a phenomenon in which the existence of a god was a necessary antecedent for the known or probable explanation for the causation of that phenomenon.
8. Several proposed (and generally accepted) explanations for observable phenomena that were previously based on the agency of a god(s), have subsequently been replaced with rational, natural explanations, each substantiated with evidence that excluded the agency of a god(s). I have never encountered _vice versa._
9. I have never knowingly experienced the presence of a god through intercession of angels, divine revelation, the miraculous act of divinity, or any occurrence of a supernatural event.
10. Every phenomenon that I have ever observed appears to have *_emerged_* from necessary and sufficient antecedents over time without exception. In other words, I have never observed a phenomenon (entity, process, object, event, process, substance, system, or being) that was created _ex nihilo_ - that is instantaneously came into existence by the solitary volition of a deity.
11. All claims of a supernatural or divine nature that I have been presented have either been refuted to my satisfaction or do not present as _falsifiable._
ALL of these facts lead me to the only rational conclusion that concurs with the realities I have been presented - and that is the fact that there is *_no good reason_* for me to acknowledge the reality of any particular god.
I have heard often that atheism is the denial of the Abrahamic god. But denial is the active rejection of a substantiated fact once credible evidence has been presented. Atheism is simply withholding such acknowledgment until sufficient credible evidence is introduced. *_It is natural, rational, and prudent to be skeptical of unsubstantiated claims, especially extraordinary ones._*
I welcome any cordial response. Peace.
@@Theo_Skeptomai Hi Theo - thank you for your comment. You've written very eloquently. I'll see if I can offer any valuable responses.
So, the crucial claim I was trying to present in the video is that we need to clarify what we mean when we say the words 'in reality' or 'exists' when talking about God. Facts 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, and (I believe - correct me if I'm wrong) 11 all presuppose that when we are speaking about God, we are speaking about something that would be empirically observable in some shape or form. Now, I imagine this is simply what follows from your own epistemology, but it's important to recognise that it's not what major theistic traditions (by which I mean the likes of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, Hinduism, the Baha'i Faith, and many more) claim in their theologies.
All assert the transcendence, invisibility, and incorporeality of God, as opposed to his being the kind of material agent (a Man in the Sky) you might imagine in a Michelangelo painting. This is why in the video I echoed D.B. Hart's example of God as being an author of a book. If we are seeking to find 'observable evidence' of Charles Dickens exclusively from within the pages of Bleak House, then we will come up short, because he is not a thing that can be observed within its pages. Dickens is not hiding on page 73, waiting to jump out at us if we just look close enough. So, as I said, we could actually have an exhaustive empirical knowledge of the book, and conclude as a result that Dickens never existed because he's not hiding in the book. Which is to say, we could have an exhaustive empirical knowledge of the material constituents of 'reality' and still would have no evidence on that account that God exists. However, this is obviously an absurd conclusion, because its hypothesis is incorrect from the outset. Dickens being the author of the book does not suggest he would be contained as an object within its pages; in fact, it necessarily suggests the opposite. And so, once we recognise that Dickens is the (to use a Christian term) 'Logos' of the book, its logic, its reason, its essence, its 'cause' (note how that word is being used here), then we can see that, contrary to our previous conclusion, in Bleak House suddenly becomes evidence for the existence of Charles Dickens. Nothing in that book could exist without him. We don't need something supernatural and extraneous to the book to swoop down and prove it to us, and we would be silly to have to wait for such a thing. In fact, whether or not that did happen, it wouldn't add anything to the state of affairs: Dickens would still undeniably be the author even if there were nothing supernatural added to the book. Natural existence is all that's needed. So these facts may be reasons to be sceptical of (as I distinguish in the video) lower case 'g' gods which people might believe roam somewhere in the cosmos and (per facts 7 and 8) cause natural events, but they do not pertain to the God of classical theism.
In fact, the next video I'm releasing will address (and criticise) the inverse of New Atheism, which I take to be Intelligent Design Theory. I don't hold arguments based on the 'God of the gaps' logic in very high esteem, for all the same reasons that I've just given above. I would argue just as fiercely against any theist who tried to claim that evidence for God can be found in discrete unexplainable natural events. This is just like saying that 'Charles Dickens definitely exists because we haven't been able to turn over this page of the book yet: therefore, he must be hiding behind it.' It's very bad reasoning, and science will always, sooner or later, prove victorious over it. And this relates to fact 9 too: whether supernatural entities like angels/miracles etc. actually exist and act on the world isn't all that relevant for my metaphysics: I believe naturalism is false in either case. But I share your scepticism when it comes to a lot of those claims, and think they can only be of use on a personal level, as something you experience yourself, but not as a universalisable argument.
As to fact 1, I'll try my meagre best: God is what we call the infinite, unconditioned, immutable, present, necessary act of Being that sustains and pervades all conditioned, mutable, temporal, contingent existence, both absolutely transcendent of and absolutely immanent to all things in the cosmos, the original source and final end of creation.
Facts 5 and 6 are very interesting, and I'm sure we'd go back and forth a great deal over certain arguments. I'll just set out a valid deductive argument that I find persuasive here, taken from the Stanford Encyc. of Philosophy:
1. A contingent being (a being such that if it exists, it could have not-existed) exists.
2. All contingent beings have a sufficient cause of or fully adequate explanation for their existence.
3. The sufficient cause of or fully adequate explanation for the existence of contingent beings is something other than the contingent being itself.
4. The sufficient cause of or fully adequate explanation for the existence of contingent beings must either be solely other contingent beings or include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
5. Contingent beings alone cannot provide a sufficient cause of or fully adequate explanation for the existence of contingent beings.
6. Therefore, what sufficiently causes or fully adequately explains the existence of contingent beings must include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
7. Therefore, a necessary being (a being such that if it exists, it cannot not-exist) exists.
8. The universe, which is composed of only contingent beings, is contingent.
9. Therefore, the necessary being is something other than the universe.
Thank you for your time and thought! Kind regards.
Actually… no … all you need to do is not believe in god and gods.
@@Atheistfromthemoon thank you for commenting! Interested to hear why you think theism isn’t a reasonable position.
@@admoni. because no evidence exists to back it up. Only arguments and assumptions are possible when rationalizing theism. Unfortunately arguments and assumptions without tangible evidence is a weak stance.
@@Atheistfromthemoon I’m curious as to what this means. Arguments, using logic, are weak? It’s pretty clear that not all that exists can be ascertained empirically - science determines true statements about the physical world, but ‘truth’ itself is clearly not something you can measure empirically or scientifically. You surely wouldn’t say that truth doesn’t exist (some science that would be!) so you’d have to admit something escapes empirical observation but is clearly existent.
@@admoni. you’re adding things not necessary to my argument. I never said anything about truth. Am talking about arguments and assumptions with no evidence. You can argue and assume about something without evidence and that thing can still be true. But it doesn’t mean I need to listen to anything you say.
@@admoni. and 99.9% of things science can show have tangible effects and evidence of its existence. Gravity has no physical form that can be held and observed . IT’s effects are the only factor that we have. But it’s 100% predicable and testable. I know that if I drop something it falls towards the earth. Barring some unforeseen circumstances this will happen no matter what.
1) even if we forget that almost everyone can understand the point of the atheist's objection of the problem of divine multiplicity, and even if we admit that God is not a type of god but is in its own special category, the problem of divine multiplicity remains since there happens to be at least ten Gods, all of which are the one true supreme being at once. unless the theist is a proponent of pluriform monotheism, holding to the dubious idea that these Gods are identical and not identical at the same time, the theist is left with the prospect of explaining why they are at least 90% atheistic. no sufficient answer can be given. 2) even if we grant that God is the especial terminus of causality (or creation) and that it makes no sense to ask what caused (or created) God, the atheist's objection can still be reformulated as simply "why God?". because if everything needs a sufficient reason to exist, then God also needs a sufficient reason to exist, and i doubt any theist will be able to provide anything better than either ignorance or inapplicability, which is patently unreasonable. your point that New Atheism is theologically insensitive may be perfectly valid, but no amount of theological sensitivity can eliminate the thrust of their objections, as i have outlined.
Thank you for commenting!
1) This would be a conclusion you’re only forced into if you cling (and certainly many religious people unfortunately do this) to a radically exclusivistic theism; and even then you would be hard pressed to explain why God himself varies from tradition to tradition rather than claims about his revelation. I struggle to take seriously anyone who really thinks that Islam and Christianity, for instance are literally talking about two different ‘Gods’, rather than both assuming the same existence of ‘God’-an unconditioned, infinite ground of Being-and only then positing theological amendments based on revelation (like the Trinity) after the fact. At most that could be a disagreement about the nature of God, not the positing of two different Gods. Same goes for every major theistic tradition.
2) I’m not seeing why the transition from causality to sufficient reason would change anything for the atheist objector. In both cases, the principle-of requiring a prior cause or a sufficient reason-is derived from the nature of contingent existence (defined by dependence on that which is other than yourself). So in both cases, we are in need of a necessary ground-not just a being sitting immortally in the middle of the contingent cosmos, but Being transcendent of it, which would prevent an infinite regression of contingent relationships supposedly accounting for their own existence, which is by definition impossible.
we could ask the question why God exist is it were not for creation itself existing, insomuch as is there were no thing but God his existence would be null, however because creation exist it alone is in need of sufficient cause its cause being explained by the fact that it cannot have causal power proper to itself. So, I answer that to ask for a purely causal power to cause the universe is not vain as it is not in need of a cause due to the fact that our universe exist and needs a sufficient unchanging cause.