lolol @ 1:06:00 -- Here's why I wanted to delete that bit: I *intended* to say that I find the *CONCLUSION* of his argument (that there's a metaphysically necessary thing) plausible. I accidentally said his *argument*. Whoops!
@@nabilrady6767 God is also the most Just, so for example, if one has committed an murder and an judge frees him without any punishment, that's not merciful, that's stupidity. Now, in islam, God is very merciful, so if you forgive and have guilt and repent you will forgiven. This is the case for Muslims. For non-Muslims, it's very complicated and we just know that non-Muslims who don't know the truth about Islam will have an special test. And also, Islam does say that every innocent person who dies goes straight to Heaven. In islam, all justice will be provided in the next world after we die.
@@maxpayne3628 Ok then, how is an all just god gonna punish our earthly mortal crimes with eternal torture? Again that doesn't seem wise or merciful, even ibn taimyah agrees with that, eternal torture is by definition useless. Also, imagine you go and have a test, and then you discover that 70% percent of people had their tests not working, and so the teacher says no problem you guys are gonna have another test. This just screams unjust, why wouldn't god make the proof for his existence equally available for everyone? Why make some people have a test that is different from others? The other test isn't just because it wouldn't be the same test, it would be a different one. Also we hear a lot of stories about god simply suspending judgement, which is contrary to your point about stupidity of mercy, if you think it's stupid to suspend judgement, then go by nature have two contradicting sifat.
@@pleaseenteraname1103No, there are respectable atheist & immature infidel atheist. Same as theist. Respectable theist and immature ignoble theist. It’s the latter people who aren’t taken serious, like y’all.
I love this video. I guess one thing is it both strengthens my interest in becoming a philosophy TH-cam creator and on some level demolishes it, because it feels like the intellectual barrier to entry is so high.
The main reason I'm a theist is from a combination of cosmological arguments and consciousness/reason/personhood (proportionate causality; in a nutshell the first cause must be personal to avoid construction problems), and teleological arguments too. But I was wondering what you think about the argument from limits (a la Rasmussen), which I also think is good. I think it would be very, very weird if the ultimate, foundational necessary being (let's just speak of "one" for simplicity's sake) were limited in power or greatness. For instance, it would be bizarre to think it could (say) only create 1004 sixtillion quarks, and not one more. But that would go for any limitation, prima facie. And the lack of intelligence or free will *would* be a limitation in power or greatness. It would be lacking; heck, it seems WE would be greater than the foundation of everything in this case. Too bizarre. Even if you reject classical theism, it seems the necessary foundation must still be purely actual in a relevant sense, and I'm just very uncomfortable with the idea of a Foundation that is somehow lacking in ontological power or perfection.
Thanks Joe, I feel like I have been updated on the contemporary list of arguments for and against theism. Your getting Meta comment is spot on. "The literature is so vast and my mind is so small" Yes and my mind is smaller than yours. It is just hard to believe that an all knowing God who wants us to know him/it would make it so difficult. I guess this idea would relate to the Divine Hiddeness argument as it relates to exclusivity unless one is a Calvinist. I appreciate what you have laid out here. I enjoy your openness and honesty for the arguments on both sides. I wish more would take this approach in seeking the truth. I may have missed it but did you grow up in a religious or non-religious home? Keep up the good and interesting content. Good luck with all of your interesting papers you are working on. Pax
Regarding the problem of consciousness going the other way, we have at least a rough experience of mind creating matter with dreams. You can walk around in a dream world, experience sensations from the world, etc. Of course, dream worlds are loopy, but it's a rough demonstration that mind can create a "physical" world. Perhaps the real "physical" world is ultimately created by mind as well. Regarding there being more than one first-personal mind, consider multiple personality disorder. I find Bernardo Kastrup's ideas pretty interesting. He describes a mind at large as an ocean, and individual consciences as whirlpools in the water, processes happening in the mind at large, in kind of a multiple personality way, yet still made of larger body of water. And Kastrup points out that this would solve the problem of why the world is shared, objective for everyone, the main thing the materialist worldview explains. We're all experiencing the same dream from the same mind at large that we're all dissociated from.
A quick comment about the comparative simplicity of naturalism vs theism: To encode all of the bits of information needed to specify the properties of the world, God, as the ultimate designer of the world, must be at least as complex as the world he created.
If you think "the scales are roughly counter-balanced" and that naturalism is simpler, why aren't you just a naturalist? Other things being equal, you should prefer the simpler theory, right?
It'd be super interesting to see if/how your thinking has changed over the course of the year+ that this was made. It's always a bit unnerving when I meet someone who has held basically the same beliefs they held in highschool. They've gotten more sophisticated at defending their views but nothing is ever really admitted to being unsupported or just wrongheaded. You seem quite, refreshingly, unique (on TH-cam anyway) in your intellectual humility as you genuinely pursue and attempt to serve truth. So discussing how this journey has unfolded would be very cool.
Never does . might as well just believe God exist whether the delusional christian is dreaming or just in it for fun who knows . God Jesus give me please an open in look so i can share it with others. or how ever you want me to understand spirit that left me the same time my Adrenal Glands were induced with Roid Rage from a Dexamethisone injection for poison ivy. I lost my Adrenal Glands spiritual Cortisol.
With due respect that is not exactly airtight reasoning. If they had really good ideas in school, or maybe they were just lucky, then there is no reason for their positions to change and/or they found evidence that reinforces it much better than they realized at the time. You should be judging then by the content of their answers, not on whether they changed their positions or not. The former is based on real intellectual substance, the latter is based on guesswork and is really shaky as a basis for critiquing others.
I'm agnostic of positions that go beyond solipsism. I need a demonstration. Perhaps I'm waiting for some special feeling to come over me where I become "confident" of such speculations. Solipsism is consistent skepticism. All these fairy tails about an external world and other minds are on the same footing as positing the existence of God. How silly. :p
I'm still early in the video but I wanted to ask, let's say you had found some convincing reason of there being a necessary first being that would bring forth the universe and what not. Would your next challenge be the nature of the necessary being? Such as it being theistic, deistic, pantheistic, so on Or would that not pose a problem for your journey of inquiry?
I've listened further and discovered that the God of classical theism you describe has a number of additional traits to the four originally mentioned that are not shared by Brahman. In particular Brahman is not a creator; creation is something that happens within time. Brahman is not ominiscient or omnipotent. Power and knowledge involve relations between entities within the creation. So although initially sharing some properties that they are described to have, they are actually very different.
I tend to think of myself as an agnostic in the sense that I’m-not (as of now) compelled to fall into either the theist or the atheist camps. I’ve lived most of my life as a Christian and some of my life as an atheist, but I’m currently in the I don’t know camp. Does god exist? I don’t know, but I hope they’ll understand why I don’t have said belief(s) if they do exist. Anyway, I found this to be a very informative video. I’ve been watching a lot of your content lately, and I’m definitely impressed with your work.
When you described classical theism on Simplicity you described absolute Divine simplicity which is something the Palamite rejects. So that's not a flavor of classical theism if defined by the version of Simplicity you presented.
One essential section you missed - probably due to your (regrettable) preference of 'neo-classical theism' to 'classical theism' - was resource recommendations for classical theism.I guess you did somewhat compensate, though, by spending more time on all of your arguments against CT you find plausible.
Well, my resource suggestions were on theism simpliciter, not on any model of God; and so technically the theist books in there are equally ones containing arguments for classical theism. But I didn't put any distinctively CT books in. I would just suggest people look at Wippel, Knasas (don't know how to spell that), Kenny, Kerr, and Davies.
Thanks for this! I was really curious of your views. Do you think you’ll ever do a reason on why you aren’t a Christian? It seems that the historical case doesn’t seem to impact your views away from agnosticism and I wasn’t sure of how you see the case impacting your views.
Good question! I think history is beyond my paygrade, lol. My main approach is to try and get settled on whether God exists prior to an in depth exploration into historical cases. [e.g. if God doesn't exist, then pretty much any naturalistic explanation will be better than resurrection; so I really want to find out whether God exists first. This is my personal approach: not everyone has to approach it like this! :) ]
Majesty of Reason Cool just wanted to ask. Since you were an agnostic I wasn’t sure if you would employ a probabilistic framework where God was possible to assess Historical arguments such as what Swinburne attempts to do.
@@MajestyofReason Well if God doesn’t exist than the explanation by definition has to be naturalistic. Because someone rising from the dead is pretty supernatural.
@@MajestyofReason Moses was the same agnostic looking for this God on the mountain. but of course lucky moses gets all the proof in the world. may be if your intelligence like moses and meet . please let us know if you do? i know our interest would be the same.
I personally identify as a pantheist. I have done so ever since I read the book, "Pantheism: A Non-Theistic Conception of Deity," by Michael P. Levine. It's an excellent book and I recommend it highly (it is highly academic and heavy going). The author is not a pantheist himself. I am a student of Vedanta, and it surprises me that there are parallels between Brahman and the classical notion of God. There are differences too of course, but simplicity, timeless, immutability, are all ways one might describe Brahman. I'm not sure about impassibility, although Brahman's nature is described as satcitananda, which is commonly translated being-consciousness-bliss. I also understand that bliss might not be a very good translation for ananda.
*Pantheism: A Non-Theistic Conception of Deity," by Michael P. Levine.* The author of that book is wrong, because pantheism is not non-theistic. It's still theistic.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 "16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." Consistently Pray for forgiveness, guidance in a good (positive) direction, and for help against evil. Pray to be saved from hell (whatever that may be). Pray for your friends and your family too, it only takes a minute or so/less at a time to pray. Do it and your life will slowly get better, or maybe quickly. It probably just depends on you and the kind of person you are/have been. Don't wait until its too late and you have to suffer the consequences of built up bad karma from immoral acts/unrepented sins. Maybe together we can help make the world a better place by changing ourselves for the better, and changing things around us for the better. And addressing/thanking the CREATOR, LORD GOD at the beginning and end of your prayers would be a good idea 😊 Or just be my friend if you don't want to say the prayer 😄 I'm trying to help you get right with the LORD 🙏 Amen. I have worded a short prayer for you to say if you are not sure what words to use, it may not be the best but here it is 😊 '' CREATOR, LORD GOD, Please forgive me and my friends and my family for our immoral acts, please help guide us in a positive direction and please help us against evil. Please save us from Hell and have mercy on our souls. Thank you CREATOR, LORD GOD. Amen. '' Please say this at least once a day for at least a month, do it longer if you want to and can 😊🙏 You should prostrate yourself if you don't want to do spoken prayer, or do both ☺🙏🙏 Please worship the LORD GOD and not any idol. Say ' Om Namah Shivaya ' out loud or in your head 108 times, or try to do it 1008 times 😊 try to do it everyday if you want
14:00 Draper's definition of Naturalism is really Materialism. Naturalism should be a broader thesis, close to what Oppy describes. I like David Chalmers's view on Naturalism (I'm paraphrasing big time): If you can explain something by causal relations leading to some fundamentals laws, then this thing is natural. Naturalism would then be the thesis that everything is natural (as explained above). Property Dualism and even Substance Dualism are so compatible with Naturalism, as long as you can find causal relations leading to fundamental laws that would explain the relationship between soul and body. (even if these laws are not strictly called "physical" laws.) Libertarian Free-will (understood as being the ability to act independently of a precedent causal chain) and the concept of God would then fall under Supernaturalism, because presumably you can't find some fundamental laws from which you can describe these things and their behavior.
This analysis was all well and good but it really amazes me how most academics seem to only care about conceptions of theism that correspond to the theism they were exposed to in their cultural tradition. Annoying math nitpick incoming: If you're 50/50 on Non-classical theism (I'm reading this as all theism that is not classical theism) and 0.2-0.3 on supporting classical theism then since these two cannot overlap you're .7-.8 in favor of theism and not agnostic by your own definition given initially. Humans are not good at probability.
I was very interested in the book you mentioned “Models of God and Alternative Ultimate Realities” however it is like $160 -$300 So maybe the publisher can give you a promo code or something because that price is harder to justify than any philosophical position in the video
Yeah, it has an *insane* price. There are (illegal but unenforced) ways to get the book for free, but I’m not going to say more than that lol. I don’t want to encourage the public to break the law haha
Just commenting here while in the midst of watching at 12:50. I've never understood "naturalism" or "the physical", or what it even means. If God exists, then God is "natural". If not, then why not? The eternal, necessary being for which everything else was brought forth seems pretty "natural" to me. Nothing could be more "natural" than that which has always existed and must exist (if God exists by necessity). Everything previously not known exist, and then is discovered, becomes "natural". I've always maintained that even for a complete empiricist naturalist, even if YHWH Himself appeared in front of every human being on earth and roared "I am GOD, and I created the universe!" that would do nothing to disprove naturalism. It seems to me that in an infinite multiverse there's almost certainly some advanced life-form that can do those sort of things, yet would have a perfectly natural explanation. It seems to be perfectly untenable question begging. Either way, I'm VERY early on in my journey to try to sort of understand these subjects, and you are far, far ahead of me! :) You seem an extremely rational person and I already like listening to your reasoning.
Hey Joe I really love your stuff and I resonated with a lot in this video - I do have one question. I noticed you said you rejected pantheism and I was wondering if there's any particular reason why? As someone studying philrel in university I sometimes worry that there is a tendency in the field to focus almost entirely on monotheism as if eastern conceptions of ultimate reality or God are just in principle flawed. I definitely have fallen prey to this, I pretty much focus exclusively on Christianity and arguments for the sort of being in line with monotheism, but I wonder how much of this is influenced by a bias towards Western ideas in the academy. At least in some sense with my limited knowledge of these non-western conceptions, they sometimes strike me as less prone to fall to Draper-esque Bayesian evidence objections which have always been a powerful argument in my mind against an omni-God.
You bring up a good point about that kind of potential bias in the academy. I haven't studied pantheism in much depth, so I can't speak much about it here. If you want my honest view, it seems somewhat odd or prima facie implausible to my mind. According to some popular versions of it, there is only one substance -- nature or God (they're the same). This has lots of defeasible problems off the bat (e.g. it seems obvious and common sensical that you and I are distinct, really existent substances). It also seems... well... not very religiously significant. [e.g. nature doesn't seem to be able to answer prayers, or care about us, or what have you]. But more research needed. :)
I'm very late to the party. Just spitballing and my brain is smooth but I've never been too bothered by natural 'evil'. The suffering of life which, through evolution, gave rise to mankind is something which God may have good reason to allow. For example, it may have been necessary for God to actualise this possible world because it brings forth the most amount of people who willingly believe *and* the least amount of people who disbelieve *and* the least amount of people who had no choice (e.g. unborn). I also don't find it that concerning when the Christian faith holds that all life will experience the resurrection. Good and bad people, alongside all life to have ever lived. While the suffering isn't undone, I'd say that's better than nothing. When it comes to horrors, human evil, I'd say the actions *are* impermissable and Hell was created with such actions in mind. Lets say you took joy in any one of the actions mentioned. No amount of joy from such evil would be worth the eternal torment in Hell. With this in mind, I'm content with people being free to do many things, seeing as God doesn't want puppets; but also because unrepentant evil people *will* get their comeuppance. Again, I think there's possible reason for God to allow such evil in this possible world. For this evil it may be more difficult to believe in a feasible reason but we don't have an exhaustive list of feasible reasons, or even possible reasons. If God is able to do all sorts of things like raise the dead or create the universe out of himself (whatever that means and looks like) can't he have made the universe out of nothing? They both sound just as miraculous and just as problematic. I quite like the Franciscan belief that God doesn't think but just knows things. If God needs to have self-consciousness to know He exists then perhaps the Trinity can suffice for this? For Divine Simplicity, I'm sure I've come across Aquinas' which states God has no nature (so he isn't identical with himself) and Augustine's which says he does have nature; or at least Milbank who used the latter version employed it to mean that. A DS which allows for nature sounds interesting and might beat those pesky hipster neo-classical theists! I disagree with the killing of the canaanites being genocide. The command was to kill anyone who didn't flee. I think the comments above re human evil are relevant but so is the fact that everyone who died before Christ's death on the Cross are said to have been preached to and saved when Christ descended into Hell - this is known as the Harrowing. I'm happy with the command because the people were evil and it's completely within God's right as ruler to kill and again, those people were later saved by Jesus from eternal punishment. Religious exclusivism in Christianity is only found in Christ informing us that He's the only way to salvation and the religion that He created is *the* religion to be a part of. Other parts of the Bible inform the reader that the existence of God (not necessarily faith in Jesus) is clear to see. Since it's entirely possible for unborn children to be saved without a confession of faith, I could see it being possible that some tribe or "innocent" (as you mentioned at the start) is saved even if they don't confess. This does beg the question "If God wants as many people in heaven as possible, why didn't He make us all "innocents" or tribes, or kill us all at birth?" but this is a misunderstanding of what God wants. It seems God wants as many confessors of faith in heaven as possible. Meaning, God would want to maximise the number of people who lived life and believed in Him. On the other hand, inclusivism makes it so that any or most religions are routes to salvation or the after life (even if they contradict) which means you could expect everyone to be in heaven and no one to be in Hell - no one to suffer for what they've done. ECT makes total sense and temporary or non conscious makes no sense. Similar to the above comment, any amount of joy through sinning is worth any amount of punishment if someone eventually goes to heaven after the punishment. If the punishment ends and the individual doesn't go to heaven, it weakens the sense of eternal joy in heaven. If someone believes and loves others and is then saved, enters eternal paradise, why shouldn't the person who wasn't saved have the opposite reward? Sinning is said to be a way one cuts themself off from God. They don't want the "life" God gives to those around Him. So in being placed in Hell, God is allowing someone to live life, fully alive, but in the constant pain of what it's like to be constantly dying- as that's what it's like to not be given the gift; it's something they chose. Minds and matter, it mightn't help to know this but the dualism is a modern thing. Some theologians in the spirit of authorship known as Radical Orthodoxy reject the dualism. The way it seems to be, is that while we are body and soul, we aren't avatars in constructs. We are our bodies. All of you is found in all of you. There's not one bit you can point to and find only some soul or some body. This is similar to the rejection of appolinarianism which stated one could differentiate between the two natures of Christ (man/God). All of God and man were found in all of Jesus. Maurice Merleau-Ponty is a source of this I think. Going from mind to matter for the theist, I quite like idealism for this but I get told off for liking it hahah. I don't get why people think it means we're made of mental stuff because I'd have thought God perceiving us, actualises us. He can know every possible world, including ours, but will ours into perception. I'm not sure I quite understand the stage two cosmological problems but I'm happy with God being limited either by logical necessity or by nature. For example it's within His nature to only desire certain things, he can't make a square circle. This was written at 1 am Thanks for coming to my Tedx Write
A dialectical note: It looks like 3 or so of the against theism section should be seperated between being against perfect being theism and deism Certain atheists make what I call the informal fallacy of concession. For example, "the Kalam doesn't have God in the conclusion." It's as if by conceding the argument, they've "won." But of course, no one is claiming the conclusion of the Kalam is "Therefore, God exists. If it is successful, they should be compelled to lessen their credence in (a certain form) of naturalism. So while ECT, PoE, etc should be taken seriously by Christians for example, they pose no problem to deists at all. One could rationally believe a God exists apart from any religious tradition. There are arguments for God being defined by the 3 omnis, but let's assume one or more fail. If such a God exists, virtually all religions are wrong, but then of course all atheists are as well! Hence the atheist rarely argues *for* naturalism but only offers an internal critique of PBT, and in fact argue for deism. Both families of arguments should be considered for the inquiring mind.
I do get that a common atheist argument is "if God exists, he is evil" but I don't think that scores any epistemic points as it were. A theist can make claims about the nature of things on naturalism (think Plantiga's EAAN) but that doesn't make him "right" unless he believes it and it's true. Otherwise, one could make all kinds of predictions about the nature of reality and be right no matter what.
Really good. I'm curious what your thoughts on non-classical theistic systems like Gaudiya Vaishnavism would be (which has panentheistic elements, a non-exclusivist ontology, repeated attempts for salvation and possibility for soul-making through reincarnation, etc.).
Have you ever talked to Dr. Ryba at Purdue? I find his phenomenological method for examining religious beliefs as a fascinating approach to look at (and evaluate) more tangible things involved in different theistic traditions. He's also just a great human to talk to about literally any theological/philosophical paradigm or to do an independent study in philosophy with if you have time. Highly recommend. I don't think I've met anyone more well-read than him. Also, if you haven't read Ockham's epistemic/semi-agnostic writings on less physically tangible concepts (like the soul), or John of Salisbury's take on sympathizing with skepticism (in Metalogican), you should. There's some harmonies with admitting the unknowable while still professing belief in Medieval Philosophy in both thoughts, which I think are very great discussion points. You remind me of Jordan Peterson (how you think and articulate arguments), and it's honestly a very refreshing, humanitarian approach toward genuinely seeking truth. We definitely need more of this kind of civil, intellectual dialogue in our culture today. If you ever go down the rabbit hole of the internet and want to watch some really engaging discussions/arguments I would watch any of Peterson's discussions with Robert Barron. Enjoyed your video :) Would love to talk philosophy if we ever cross paths.
Peterson's approach seems so unfinshed confusing as if the higher were only meant for God? the rest are pretty well screwed. Dare to say you believe in God is not in scriptures understanding as Jordan makes his God aproach witch is man not all way's trusted.
Great video schmid, as always. I was wondering about your opinion on deism ? I mean people asked you about the case for Christianity or Islam on a historical basis, but if we assumed that u are philosophically convinced of god, do you imagine yourself rejecting all these historical proofs and becoming a deist? Because I myself find all historical proofs to be very unconvincing and i also find religious pluralism to convince me that religions are false, so I can't imagine myself following a particular religion, do you feel the same?
You mentioned various definitions of naturalism. I'm a fan of Alfred North Whitehead, and I thought perhaps his view on materialism might be relevant. In Science and the Modern World, he wrote: “There persists, however, throughout the whole period the fixed scientific cosmology that presupposes the ultimate fact of an irreducible brute matter, or material, spread throughout space in a flux of configurations. In itself such a material is senseless, valueless, purposeless. It just does what it does do, following a fixed routine imposed by external relations which do not spring from the nature of its being. It is this assumption that I call 'scientific materialism. . . . Also, it is an assumption which I shall challenge as being entirely unsuited to the scientific situation at which we have now arrived. It is not wrong if properly construed. If we confine ourselves to certain types of facts, abstracted from the complete circumstances in which they occur, the materialistic assumption expresses these facts to perfection. But when we pass beyond the abstraction, either by more subtle employment of our senses, or by the request for meanings and for coherence of thoughts, the scheme breaks down at once. The narrow efficiency of the scheme was the very cause of its supreme methodological success. For it directed attention to just those groups of facts which, in the state of knowledge then existing, required investigation."
@@MajestyofReason It's related to the former, but more than that. Leibniz has some interesting views on modality that are perhaps dismissed too quickly in contemporary discussions (though there's been some recent pushback, to be sure). In brief, he has a way of accepting a *kind* of necessitarianism without collapsing all possible worlds into the actual world; Martin Lin's article "Rationalism and Necessitarianism" is worth checking out. Or maybe see the NDPR review of Michael Griffin's "Leibniz, God, and Necessity" for a quick introduction. The upshot is that Leibniz's "necessitarianism" probably shouldn't be any more troubling to us than run of the mill determinism. Of course if you're committed to LFW you won't find it attractive regardless, but I've always been extremely skeptical of LFW. Needless to say all this is quite controversial, but I was interested in hearing your thoughts.
Love your videos Joe,but I do got a question. When you talk about the alone world what do you mean it's intristciliy contigent on God? And how does that follow from your third version of the alone argument?
@@studioofgreatness9598 No worries! So, I did not claim that "God choosing not to create makes God contingent on this fact". So, that is not part of my arguments. It may help to direct me to what precise minute/second of the video that you would like clarification on. :)
@@MajestyofReason Okay I rewatch the first part of the alone argument and now I understand lol. My bad Joe. I was basically asking what you men by intristic/contingent parts of God but I watch the part where you explain it thanks Joe.
Great video! Btw, have you seen Rationality Rule's "opening statement" in response to Cameron from Capturing Christianity? If so, what did you think of it?
I did! I thought it was, well, sub-par. On the positive side: Steven is correct to emphasize the gap problem (inferring 'God' from 'at least one uncaused concrete object')
@@tanner955 The main reason is because I accept bivalence (for all p, either p v ~p is true), and I accept that foreknowledge is compatible with free will. Cf. my previous video and the comments thereon. :)
Really curious to hear more from you after you've looked more into evolutionary debunking arguments. I find the EAAN to be extremely persuasive for myself, would love to hear more thoughts from you on it.
Do you have me on Facebook? If you DM me, I can send you an informal discussion I had with a PhD student on the EAAN wherein I leveled criticisms toward it [it's only about 1,800 words as a discussion, so it's quite digestible!]
I dont know about the EAAN anymore. I find Hoffmans work very persuasive in showing that our cognitive faculites are not designed for truth, and so theism+evolution wouldn't be a proper alternative to naturalism+evolution. The only other solution is the one Hoffman gives, that things like logic, math, and belief formation are targets of different selection pressures than our perceptions of objects, so this saves theism+evolution but also saves naturalism + evolution
@@TheBrunarr Assuming you mean Donald Hoffman the cognitive psychologist? I have not read much/any of his work, honestly just seen his well-known ted talk. I thought his work mostly was discussing how our sensory perception of reality may be skewed, which to me seems to be mostly irrelevant to the EAAN, which is primarily concerned with the truth of things like metaphysical beliefs. I'm not sure how different selection pressures saves both theism and naturalism. The entire point of the EAAN is that it's extremely difficult to tell a purely materialist story where adaptive behavior would necessarily map onto true belief content, rather than false belief content. However, I might be misinterpreting your point here...?
@@philster5918 The main point is that belief formation isn't necessarily subjected to the fitness-beats-truth theorem. If that's true, then naturalism + evolution doesn't have the problem that the argument is trying to show it does. If belief formation is necessarily subjected to the fitness-beats-truth theorem then that means it would be true on theism as well, so it's not clear how theism + evolution would solve the problem.
@@TheBrunarr OK, I sincerely apologize, because I'm really not following you here. What part of Hoffman's work shows that belief formation isn't necessarily subjected to the fitness-beats-truth theorem? I agree with you that if there was a mechanism that allowed for truth-beats-fitness, naturalism has no problem, but that mechanism just seems incredibly unlikely to me on naturalism. I also don't follow your second point, but let's hash out the first one first =)
Hey Joe, got to this video a little late, I see you’re on sort of a spiritual journey right now and theres probably atheists and Christians alike in your comment sections telling you to come to their side 😂😂. If you did come to the conclusion beyond most doubt that God exists, would you then become a Christian because of the case for the resurrection? Or just a theist for some time and eventually transition if the evidence is ever good enough?
just what we need . more gods makes personality. Why its confusing enough dealing with the understanding of just 1 god. God the one who promises but may be changes his mind or Repents.
Mega resources on Theism at Linkapalooza: www.reddit.com/r/Noachide/wiki/resources And on DDS: www.reddit.com/r/Noachide/comments/9wmh9r/want_to_understand_gd_contemplate_his_oneness
Have you read Perry Hendricks' defenses of Michael Bergmann's skeptical theism? They seem very plausible, if not decisive in favor of skeptical theism (at least as a phenomenal conservative myself). It wouldn't surprise me if you have read them since you are at Purdue. What are your thoughts on them? Also, have you read Michael Huemer's works critiquing the use of simplicity/Ockham's razor in philosophy, or his liberal moral progression points against evolutionary debunking arguments? What do you think of them?
Wouldn't it be possible to rephrase what you say in the "getting meta" part about how our minds are so small while the literature is so big in order to formulate a kind of argument against theism, not that dissimilar from the problem of divine hiddenness? Something like the extreme difficulty of getting to know whether there is a god or not goes against the likely desire of God of getting us to know that he exists so that we can orientate our lives to better reflect his nature/desires? This would be especially strong against exclusivist religions (even more those that include ECT) but even inclusivist versions would have some explaning to do. For example, it would be quite strange if God in order to achieve salvation required of us to know whether M-theory is true or not, given how difficult it is for the average person to actually understand and study that stuff. Even if salvation was all but assured for everyone, it would still be strange for God to create a world where knowing about M-theory is either necessary or strongly reccomended to live the good life AND this difficult to understand/study.
I would be interested to know if you have read the following books? Christopher Hughes - Aquinas on Being, Goodness, and God Anthony Kenny - The Five Ways: St Thomas Aquinas’ Proofs of God’s Existence Anthony Kenny - Aquinas on Being
Wonderful presentation! I’m very impressed. You should investigate the Eastern Orthodox model of God. It has a lot in common with Neo-Classical Theism and Panentheism. I would check out Jay Dyer’s TH-cam channel and set up a conversation with him. Believe me it will be well worth it. I’m praying for you. Continue to humbly seek out the truth and God will reveal Himself to you. I wish you nothing but the best.
i still don't see how anyone can get from universal creator god exists, to any particular religious god or doctrine. It seem to allow for all possible religions and god types to be true. Such creator could create infinitely many creators, or polytheistic gods. Each planet in the universe could have its own god. I can be agnostic on a universal creator for sure but ultimately it would still be unknown to any details of such god, so I would be atheistic on any religious god.
Your perceived ‘order’ in reality is not really an argument for any god. I think you need a good dose of physics in your metaphysics. There are indications that it may simply be the case that things cannot be arranged in other ways. This is aside from the fine tuning issue. There are many possible universes without fine tuning that would have laws that can be expressed in mathematical terms. I don’t think you can jump to ‘I can imagine worlds without laws of physics’. You can but that doesn’t mean they could exist. You also seem to be easily seduced by consciousness, which is an area of scientific uncertainty. We just don’t know enough about it to know how ‘miraculous’ it is. It is likely that it confers evolutionary advantages to social creatures. Also, there is not free will in any real sense. It’s a reasonably good model to speak about human beings and other creatures, but in no way it violates the laws of physics; so you, as a collection of particles, will obey the laws of physics, period. So, the most intractable out of all of your arguments for theism is fine tuning. Again, we don’t know enough, but it could well be the case that those parameters cannot be otherwise based in some more fundamental laws we have not discovered yet, or it might be that we are in the universe that had the right values out of many different universes that exist. There are quite solid versions of the multiverse that contemplate this. If we knew for a fact that those values could be otherwise or that it is not possible for there to be other universes with other values, then fine, but there ways in which there can be other universes and also there are ways in which it may turn out that those values could not have been different. The uncaused cause is another issue, as there is nothing to say that the cosmos itself is not eternal. There are various models for this. Remember the big bang was not ex nihilo.
I disagree with the first bullet point...believing in something is a fair concept and if this something is a well defined proposition it is not unfair to call it a belief...and if this proposition is well defined and can only have one interpretation than can't multiple people adhere to the same "belief"?
Hey Joe. Would you be open to having Liz Jackson on? If you consider Neo-Classical Theism and Panenthism at 0.5 or just a belief in a God of that sort at 0.5 then Pascal's Wager might be for you! The decision matrix though might look like a nightmare if you include all that info though. Liz might have her work cut out for her lol. :)
Klaas Kraay isn’t a theist? I haven’t read any of his material, but, just from the titles and abstracts I have read, they always seemed to imply that he was.
Good question! Come to think of it, I'm actually not sure. At the time I put the presentation together, I had been under the impression he wasn't a theist; but now I'm unsure. My apologies if I'm wrong!!! [I very well could be :) ]
Hi guys. Joe this was an amazing video! I just finished my MA at Ryerson university and I studied with Klaas. He is a theist as far as I know. Although, its hard to tell sometimes because he is so intellectually humble and open to arguments. He is super nice so send him an email if you want. I could set you up ;)
That points to a really, *really* interesting argument from religious diversity and religious ambiguity against God's existence. Justin Scheiber (in his book with Randal Rauser) defends a version of this argument. For me, I think God could have quite good reason for allowing religious ambiguity: loving insight flow across ideological barriers. Of course, it's inherently risky, since we can instead choose wars, tribalism, and xenophobia. But it's all about creating the *context* for the values and virtues to flourish with some risk and indeterminism. :)
@@MajestyofReason Hmm. Maybe. So, if I was born in India in like 600BC, it'd be too bad for me because of religious ambiguity? Seems like most of god's "plans" are not really that effective. Most religions were spread by war. Where's the loving insight in that?
I get that you live "as if" you're agnostic in the sense that you seek arguments from both sides, etc. but that still doesn't answer whether you live as if God exists. If you think it's as likely to be true as false, do you tithe and everything, just in case? To whom? How exactly does this belief that it's credible affect your behavior? 🤷♂
I have a question, what if you believe that fundamental reality involved mental properties but just not the type we think of when we refer to god. Like panpsychism. It would get rid of the construction problem. Matter just has mental properties. Or is composed of both the mental and physical. I suggest looking into david chalmers.
If you're more atheistic towards some models of God and more of an agnostic towards others, then the best description as a whole would be a non-theist, which I argue should be a more prevalent descriptor.
@@toonyandfriends1915 Yes, but there's an asymmetry in attitudes here. For a theist, it's sufficient that you believe in some version of divinity and by implication you're addressing all other possible models. You might not know everything about the divine you believe in, but you believe you know some things and all models that deny what you know are false (and you should arguably believe in that about as strongly as you believe in your version of the divine). For someone like me, I might have different positions towards different models - none of them as a believer. Why should I choose just one label from many, why should I give preference to some groups of believers above others when addressing this problem as a whole? The only way to address the whole issue for me, at least approximately, is by the lowest common denominator, that is: I'm not a theist about any of them, but for different reasons (this is not just about a psychological state).
@@krzyszwojciech Theistic models only describe different types of divinity, but they are still about a divinity. I believe that you could hold metaphysical models or views of the world that addresses every type of theistic models as less plausible or having less explanatory power/plausibility then the ones you currently hold. Such as metaphysical naturalism or physicalism/materialism. By the law of non contradiction, if you feel that these metaphysical claim explains the world better than the existence of any divinity or supernatural power, then it would mean you'd be an atheist. It doesn't really matter if you think the classical god is more plausible than zeus, as you'd ultimately think that all of them are less plausible than them non existing. Therefore it wouldn't really matter what version of divinity we are talking about, since your views would reject all of them as false. However it is possible you seem that some metaphysical views are more plausible than others hence your credence and how firm you are to your position may vary. But this credence only got affected by some models that you found plausible, and not by some others which you found implausible. If you are an epistemological agnostic, then it doesn't matter which theory of divinity we address, as we cannot know any of them. If you are just an agnostic that thinks that "the evidences are counterbalanced (as joseph likes to say)" then you think that a divinity existing is as plausible as a divinity not existing . It really does not matter which type of divinity we are talking about, as this ultimately shows that you cast doubt to other metaphysical views that atheists might hold too. To be fair you could be an atheist and also reject materialism and think for example consciousness is immaterial (David Chalmers), but this could make the existence of an immaterial divinity more likely.
At 57:14 you said that god is essentially three persons, so each person should also be essentially three persons, so it should be nine persons. But you’re assuming that the three persons of god all have a unique set of three persons, which they don’t have to. The holy spirits 3 persons could be the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. The son can have the same 3 persons as the Holy Spirit , and the father can have the same 3 persons
"The holy spirits 3 persons could be the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. " If I understand correctly, that would mean the holy spirit is three persons, and one of those three persons is the holy spirit. But if only one of those three persons is the holy spirit, then how can the holy spirit be three persons?
@@MajestyofReason Just finished your video on why you are an agnostic, and you've got yourself a new sub :). I'm just a teen with no real philosophy training, so finding channels like this is highly useful. What do you make of a sceptical theist response (on the backdrop of temporal butterfly effects) to the problem of animal suffering?
Hmm, would you say panpsychism can not be squared with naturalism? It seems to me that your definition of naturalism would rule it out (though I might be totally mistaken, I am only superficially familiar with panpsychism).
Good question! I'm not quite sure. A number of panpsychists say that their view is decidedly non-naturalist. But others say they're naturalist. Defining 'naturalism' is just really, really messy lol.
While I need to research it further, I would argue that (i) it is incompatible with classical theist (but sits nicely with Neo-CT and panentheism), but (ii) I think properties, propositions, etc. must be *prior* to thoughts/concepts (e.g. something already has to have the property of being able to think in order for its thoughts to be able to ground any properties to begin with). If you're curious, I articulate about 10 distinct problems for theistic conceptualism in my video "non-traditional arguments for theism". I think it was part 1 of the 2-part series.
@Majesty of Reason I’m trying to get more into philosophy and I was hoping you could tell me what’s wrong with this philosophical argument. P1 omnipotence means the capability of doing anything logically possible. P2 God is omnipotent. P3 it is logically impossible to create something from nothing. C1 therefor god could not have created he universe ex nihilo.
Not Majesty of Reason, but I think the problem with your argument is that you haven’t demonstrated that it’s logically impossible to create something from nothing. Of course, this worry about creatio ex nihilo is a valid concern and it’d be justified to say something like “the Kalam requires creatio ex nihilo to be true and because I find that very unconvincing, I will reject the argument”. However, it’s not a good enough reason for someone who’s already a theist who holds to the doctrine. Creatio ex nihilo just seems to be an axiom which which some people may accept and others will reject. Note: There are classical theists and other Aristotelians who hold that the universe is eternal so the theist can just fallback on another position.
Wait, so do you accept free will? I'm not done with the video yet but you mention free will as potential supporting evidence for neo-classical theism, does that imply that you actually believe in it? Or am I just confused?
So, essentially, I would say *if* free will exists, then it seems to provide evidence for theism. And, moreover, I attach a probability higher than 0.5 to the antecedent of that conditional (though I'm quite tentative). And note that I'm including both libertarian and compatibilist free will here. :)
Regarding 'fine-tuning', if the world did not exhibit some degree of order or stability we wouldn't have been able to evolve and we wouldn't be here to wonder about it. There is an observation-selection effect at play here. So I personally don't find the existence of order to be convincing evidence for theism. Here's a great paper which deals with this topic: The Anthropic Principle Does Not Support Supernaturalism by Michael Ikeda and Bill Jefferys quasar.as.utexas.edu/anthropic.html
Hey, man - nice talk. Though I must say that I truly wonder how little time you put aside for consciousness. Consciousness is the primal thing, how come do you give it so little attention? With it none of this matters (pun intended). Also consciousness is the only permanent substance (consciousness and existence), everything else is subjected to change. I don't equate consciousness with mind. Mind is changing, but the thing by which mind is known (by consciousness) is static. Can you argue that consciousness is dynamic, changing in any way? So I'd say that existence and consciousness gotta deserve more attention, because even attention is predicated by consciousness, else you wouldn't even know of attention. - what is common to everything that you know? Existence. Thing are. That's undeniable. ...Maybe you can dispute it? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this if you ever get the time. And by which is everything known? Consciousness. So if I'd attach ANY attributes to god, and I don't usually think that way, I'd say that existence and consciousness are the primal principles. And I'd push it even further... Existence + consciousness -> experience. Actually to be more technical I'd also distinct between consciousness and awareness. But it doesn't matter for now, as I'm not sure you'll answer this at all.
Did Neanderthals have consciousness? If there is a god, let’s the Christian god, did God give Neanderthals consciousness? What about chimpanzees? They have rituals, recognize themselves in mirrors, have a sense of right and wrong and many of the same things a person would attribute to consciousness. And my dogs pay attention to the surroundings around them, pay attention to what I’m doing, they know when I’m upset, and recognize faces and people; so if consciousness and attention are important to you as a subject, would you say my dogs are just as conscious and attentive as a human?
Great video. I really wasn't sure what to think about the whole "limits" thing either until quite recently. I'm guessing you've seen Rasmussen's argument from mere broadly logical possibility (even if that does not also characterize metaphysical posibility)? Or, as Josh puts it, from only the "truths of reason". For myself, reading the proof from the S5 axiom adapted for BL logical possibility and realizing that you can adapt all other modal cosmological arguments in terms of BL possibility to get a BL necessary being added a lot of plausibility to Koons' idea that changes in mere degrees of measurable attributes don't make a difference to a being's modal status (as well as Josh's proposals for means by which to optain modal knowledge, i.e. catagorical uniformity). All this makes a lot of sense to me when we're dealing only with logical relations of and between kinds. Of course, this opens up the door to the Kantian objection that existence is not a predicate etc. but I'm not so convinced by that. I'm curious what you think of this?
Ha! I have much to say and think about these proposals. I really need to work on some papers now, so I cannot discuss it in much depth. But I do think there are problems along the lines I specified in the video (necessary limits, desire problem, trinity problem, and other problems). :)
I think there are societies that eat there dead, it is considers something like making the spirit of dead one a part of you etc.(dk if that is a mith) endocannibalism maybe dk
I tend to accept the one which goes as follows : “Anything that exists has an explanation for its existence either in the necessity of its own nature or in a source external to it”
Since Islam -- from what I'm aware -- affirms classical theism, it will inherit many of the problems I outline in my "Against: Classical Theism" section. :)
God has not done anything for you, as oppose the good people in your life. A smile from a stranger, a hand out of food during this covid times, a "thank you" when you give someone something... people are gods. Don't give gratitude to someone who hasn't done anything for you.
If you have anything other than a non-zero confidence in a god existing, whose existence entails eternal conscious torment (ECT) for those who do not believe in him, then doesn't the feeble pascal argument actually do some work here? If your credence is 0.2/0.3 that a theistic god exists, whose existence entails ECT for not doing what the god says, and if you are a rational creature who does not want to undergo ECT, then shouldn't you do what that god says? If, in your eyes, the probability of this god existing is around 20%, and the punishment for not doing what he says is infinite, then isn't irrational to not do what you believe (with 20% confidence) he wants? I have been more honest with myself recently and found that I do believe gods (who entail ECT) do not exist, probably with a 99.5% confidence or something.. Despite the 0.5% confidence that one of these gods does exist, I feel I ought to be doing what I can to avoid ETC since the consequence is infinite, even if i give it such a small probability.. What are your thoughts?
I've never felt the force of Pascal's reasoning. Cultivating moral and intellectual virtue is intrinsically valuable, and it is for this reason that I strive to cultivate them. If there happens to be an extrinsic reward for this (heaven as opposed to ECT), then fine; if not, then fine. Either way, someone who seeks, loves, and pursues the true and good (albeit falling short, as is human nature) is surely living up to the moral commands of any perfect being worthy of the name
@@MajestyofReason Yea if moral realism is true, then I would agree with you. That is how I used to look at it. But I guess I am a moral anti-realist now... I am really really struggling right now trying to make sense of moral realism. I just don't know what is meant by "moral" or "good". To me it seems like people just use those words to express whether something is inline with their preferences. When I talk to my theist friends, they say good means "in line with gods nature". So rationally speaking, if I care about my wellbeing and if I think there is a non-zero chance this god exists, then I ought to do what they are claiming is inline with gods nature, even if it entails killing/hurting other creatures. But I don't.. And it seems irrational. Thank you for the response!
Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD , and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Isaiah 55:6-7 KJV
The most powerful argument for atheism in my mind, is the apriori rejection of anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism. It seems as self-centered to me for us to think that the foundation of reality is a Person, as it would for a chicken to think the universe must have begun from a Cosmic Egg. This extends to all forms of anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism, including "only" saying that reality "has a purpose" and so on. Such positions seem a priori unlikely and incongruent with what neuroscience teaches us about mentality. It would require extraordinary evidence to convince me this view of reality is, against all science and cosmic-humility, nevertheless true.
In "For Classical Theism (Distinctively)": If we take premise #4 to be "For a given type P, the existence of beings of type P can only be explained by a being not of type P." that might be fine. My main problem is that premise #2 takes the union of the different types Ch = Changeable, Co = Composite, EED = Essence-Existence-Distinct, etc. and treats these types as a uniform type T for no real reason. If Ch is explained by a non-Ch, and Co by a non-Co, EED by non-EED, etc. I see no reason to assume that all these explanations are one and the same.
@@MajestyofReason Yay! A reply! Thank you! 🤗 I see, so if premises 2 and 4 are meant as "premise schemas" then I guess while "a changeless being exists", etc. follows, it needs extra steps to argue why these a priori different beings are possibly (let alone probably) the same being (2 and 4 to 5). Has classical theism soundly made that step?
@@n0ccca I think there are arguments for this step. For instance, suppose we run the original argument schema and conclude to an absolutely simple//non-composite being. Well, we can derive pretty much all the other 'characteristics' from simplicity: (i) if the being had potential for change, then it would be a composite of actuality and potentiality; and since it's non-composite, it follows it has no potential for change, i.e. it's unchangeable; (ii) if essence and existence weren't identical within this being, then it would be a composite of essence and existence; since it's non-composite, its essence and existence are identical; and so on. :)
@@MajestyofReason That sounds fair, albeit suspicious: if simplicity can give us the other properties almost for free, it may ultimately give us some contradiction down the line (just an impression I have). More relevantly, it does raise the question (I don't remember if the video addresses it) of "mutual" explanation: If any being is simple if and only if it is not composite (truly complementary types), then premise 4 would seem to work both ways: The existence of a composite being can only be explained by a simple being. The existence of a simple being can only be explained by a composite being. As if simplicity and compositeness were just two sides of the same unexplained coin, with no one side more fundamental than the other?
@@n0ccca "it may ultimately give us some contradiction down the line" I agree that simplicity ends up causing many, many, many problems. :) I don't think premise 4 would imply that; it's not as though a non-composite being explains a simple being and vice versa; rather, they are just *one and the same thing*, i.e. they are identical.
Thank you for this video, especially since it prompted me to do a bit of introspection regarding what I am or at least what I think I am. I suppose I'm agnostic in the sense I don't hold to know that a god doesn't exist (as in I don't have 100% certainty a god doesn't exist), I have to consider the possibility of its existence and I'm open to proof towards that. However, if I were to put myself on a scale where 0 means I'm 100% convinced a god exists and 1 is I'm 100% convinced a god doesn't exist, I'd probably put myself somewhere close to 1. Perhaps 0.9 or 0.95. There rest is really just allowance for the possibility that I'm wrong (I am a limited and fallible being after all) and that sufficiently convincing proof may exist. Or perhaps proof does exist and I've not seen yet, or I've seen it but wasn't open-minded enough or intellectually able enough to understand it. Not sure if all this would qualify me as an atheist, or more of an agnostic atheist. However when it comes to the existence of the classical Judeo-Christian god, I would have no qualms with calling myself purely an atheist. I'm not sure I would even want to live in a world where such a being existed, as I do not find it worthy of worship and would find the idea of it judging me based on my belief in it terrifying. Considering my stance on this, all the while living in a predominantly Christian (Orthodox) country, I found it more practical to label myself in casual conversation simply as an atheist, as opposed to an agnostic atheist. Outside the realm of philosophical debate, the idea of god has a far reaching social and political impact and, in a country where the dominant religion still exerts a large amount of power over the secular state, I most certainly don't want to be perceived, even if inaccurately, as "sitting on the sidelines".
Also, I forgot to mention, this video seems like a very good place to start exploring some arguments that I, for one, was not aware of. Thank you for that as well!
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lolol @ 1:06:00 -- Here's why I wanted to delete that bit: I *intended* to say that I find the *CONCLUSION* of his argument (that there's a metaphysically necessary thing) plausible. I accidentally said his *argument*. Whoops!
Also, at 1:31:58, my brain turned off.
@@maxpayne3628 what about the all merciful? Al-latif? Al-wadood .
@@nabilrady6767 God is also the most Just, so for example, if one has committed an murder and an judge frees him without any punishment, that's not merciful, that's stupidity.
Now, in islam, God is very merciful, so if you forgive and have guilt and repent you will forgiven. This is the case for Muslims.
For non-Muslims, it's very complicated and we just know that non-Muslims who don't know the truth about Islam will have an special test.
And also, Islam does say that every innocent person who dies goes straight to Heaven. In islam, all justice will be provided in the next world after we die.
@@maxpayne3628 Ok then, how is an all just god gonna punish our earthly mortal crimes with eternal torture? Again that doesn't seem wise or merciful, even ibn taimyah agrees with that, eternal torture is by definition useless. Also, imagine you go and have a test, and then you discover that 70% percent of people had their tests not working, and so the teacher says no problem you guys are gonna have another test. This just screams unjust, why wouldn't god make the proof for his existence equally available for everyone? Why make some people have a test that is different from others? The other test isn't just because it wouldn't be the same test, it would be a different one.
Also we hear a lot of stories about god simply suspending judgement, which is contrary to your point about stupidity of mercy, if you think it's stupid to suspend judgement, then go by nature have two contradicting sifat.
@@nabilrady6767 Then you can take the position which ibn Taymiyyah takes.
So, a special test is injust?
New atheists: so what you're saying is that God is the same as sky fairy
Flying spaghetti monster sky daddy wizard dragon 😜.
@@pleaseenteraname1103No, there are respectable atheist & immature infidel atheist.
Same as theist. Respectable theist and immature ignoble theist.
It’s the latter people who aren’t taken serious, like y’all.
@@JoshuaMSOG7 yeah completely agree.
@@pleaseenteraname1103y r you everywhere tho
@@toonyandfriends1915 Because I like these sorts of channels.
My freind, it would be so great to organize a debate between you and Feser on Skype, I would be looking forward to it!
I love this video. I guess one thing is it both strengthens my interest in becoming a philosophy TH-cam creator and on some level demolishes it, because it feels like the intellectual barrier to entry is so high.
This was really good. It’s also helpful as a place to start exploring arguments for and against theism
Very, *very* good, on so many levels!
Agreed!
@@WorldviewDesignChannel hahahaha
Thanks Josh. I see you as one among a few primary originating causes of my grand philosophical journey :)
The main reason I'm a theist is from a combination of cosmological arguments and consciousness/reason/personhood (proportionate causality; in a nutshell the first cause must be personal to avoid construction problems), and teleological arguments too. But I was wondering what you think about the argument from limits (a la Rasmussen), which I also think is good.
I think it would be very, very weird if the ultimate, foundational necessary being (let's just speak of "one" for simplicity's sake) were limited in power or greatness. For instance, it would be bizarre to think it could (say) only create 1004 sixtillion quarks, and not one more. But that would go for any limitation, prima facie. And the lack of intelligence or free will *would* be a limitation in power or greatness. It would be lacking; heck, it seems WE would be greater than the foundation of everything in this case. Too bizarre. Even if you reject classical theism, it seems the necessary foundation must still be purely actual in a relevant sense, and I'm just very uncomfortable with the idea of a Foundation that is somehow lacking in ontological power or perfection.
Do you think God is omnibenevolent ? If yes, why ?
Hiei!
There is no God!
The first cause cant by definitions have an outside explanation of it's limits. They're going to be metaphysically necessary
If you are a theist i love you
Your remark around 15:28 ROCKS! This entire presentation is both interesting and helpful, because it is nice to hear your perspective on things.
So much love
Darth Dawkin's head just exploded.
Thanks Joe, I feel like I have been updated on the contemporary list of arguments for and against theism. Your getting Meta comment is spot on. "The literature is so vast and my mind is so small" Yes and my mind is smaller than yours. It is just hard to believe that an all knowing God who wants us to know him/it would make it so difficult. I guess this idea would relate to the Divine Hiddeness argument as it relates to exclusivity unless one is a Calvinist.
I appreciate what you have laid out here. I enjoy your openness and honesty for the arguments on both sides. I wish more would take this approach in seeking the truth.
I may have missed it but did you grow up in a religious or non-religious home? Keep up the good and interesting content. Good luck with all of your interesting papers you are working on. Pax
THANK YOU!!! Much love
My reasoning: i can't bring myself to care whether or not there's higher beings out there
You are a gifted person
Regarding the problem of consciousness going the other way, we have at least a rough experience of mind creating matter with dreams. You can walk around in a dream world, experience sensations from the world, etc. Of course, dream worlds are loopy, but it's a rough demonstration that mind can create a "physical" world. Perhaps the real "physical" world is ultimately created by mind as well.
Regarding there being more than one first-personal mind, consider multiple personality disorder. I find Bernardo Kastrup's ideas pretty interesting. He describes a mind at large as an ocean, and individual consciences as whirlpools in the water, processes happening in the mind at large, in kind of a multiple personality way, yet still made of larger body of water.
And Kastrup points out that this would solve the problem of why the world is shared, objective for everyone, the main thing the materialist worldview explains. We're all experiencing the same dream from the same mind at large that we're all dissociated from.
This video was great, my dude.
A quick comment about the comparative simplicity of naturalism vs theism: To encode all of the bits of information needed to specify the properties of the world, God, as the ultimate designer of the world, must be at least as complex as the world he created.
This is a great lecture by a young professor
This was reasonably majestic
Or was it majestically reasonable?
Internet atheists be like,” Oh yeah?? Well, you’re already an atheist about the classical theist God. I just go one god farther!!!”
Lol
lolol
*/New Atheists
@@petery6432 Fair enough
Someone explain this to me 😂 I'm yet to watch the vid but I wanna understand the reference
Internet Christians be like "Oh yeah?? Well there is a first cause therefore Jesus actually cast demons out of pigs and walked on water!"
If you think "the scales are roughly counter-balanced" and that naturalism is simpler, why aren't you just a naturalist? Other things being equal, you should prefer the simpler theory, right?
It'd be super interesting to see if/how your thinking has changed over the course of the year+ that this was made. It's always a bit unnerving when I meet someone who has held basically the same beliefs they held in highschool. They've gotten more sophisticated at defending their views but nothing is ever really admitted to being unsupported or just wrongheaded. You seem quite, refreshingly, unique (on TH-cam anyway) in your intellectual humility as you genuinely pursue and attempt to serve truth. So discussing how this journey has unfolded would be very cool.
Never does . might as well just believe God exist whether the delusional christian is dreaming or just in it for fun who knows . God Jesus give me please an open in look so i can share it with others. or how ever you want me to understand spirit that left me the same time my Adrenal Glands were induced with Roid Rage from a Dexamethisone injection for poison ivy. I lost my Adrenal Glands spiritual Cortisol.
With due respect that is not exactly airtight reasoning. If they had really good ideas in school, or maybe they were just lucky, then there is no reason for their positions to change and/or they found evidence that reinforces it much better than they realized at the time. You should be judging then by the content of their answers, not on whether they changed their positions or not. The former is based on real intellectual substance, the latter is based on guesswork and is really shaky as a basis for critiquing others.
This served me well. Thank you
I'm agnostic of positions that go beyond solipsism. I need a demonstration. Perhaps I'm waiting for some special feeling to come over me where I become "confident" of such speculations.
Solipsism is consistent skepticism. All these fairy tails about an external world and other minds are on the same footing as positing the existence of God. How silly. :p
I'm still early in the video but I wanted to ask, let's say you had found some convincing reason of there being a necessary first being that would bring forth the universe and what not. Would your next challenge be the nature of the necessary being? Such as it being theistic, deistic, pantheistic, so on
Or would that not pose a problem for your journey of inquiry?
What ever your getting at come down a bit. all that pantheistic stuff is your benifit but who else.
I've listened further and discovered that the God of classical theism you describe has a number of additional traits to the four originally mentioned that are not shared by Brahman. In particular Brahman is not a creator; creation is something that happens within time. Brahman is not ominiscient or omnipotent. Power and knowledge involve relations between entities within the creation. So although initially sharing some properties that they are described to have, they are actually very different.
I tend to think of myself as an agnostic in the sense that I’m-not (as of now) compelled to fall into either the theist or the atheist camps. I’ve lived most of my life as a Christian and some of my life as an atheist, but I’m currently in the I don’t know camp. Does god exist? I don’t know, but I hope they’ll understand why I don’t have said belief(s) if they do exist.
Anyway, I found this to be a very informative video. I’ve been watching a lot of your content lately, and I’m definitely impressed with your work.
Majestic!
You are way too underrated.
When you described classical theism on Simplicity you described absolute Divine simplicity which is something the Palamite rejects. So that's not a flavor of classical theism if defined by the version of Simplicity you presented.
One essential section you missed - probably due to your (regrettable) preference of 'neo-classical theism' to 'classical theism' - was resource recommendations for classical theism.I guess you did somewhat compensate, though, by spending more time on all of your arguments against CT you find plausible.
Well, my resource suggestions were on theism simpliciter, not on any model of God; and so technically the theist books in there are equally ones containing arguments for classical theism. But I didn't put any distinctively CT books in. I would just suggest people look at Wippel, Knasas (don't know how to spell that), Kenny, Kerr, and Davies.
Thanks for this! I was really curious of your views. Do you think you’ll ever do a reason on why you aren’t a Christian? It seems that the historical case doesn’t seem to impact your views away from agnosticism and I wasn’t sure of how you see the case impacting your views.
Good question! I think history is beyond my paygrade, lol. My main approach is to try and get settled on whether God exists prior to an in depth exploration into historical cases. [e.g. if God doesn't exist, then pretty much any naturalistic explanation will be better than resurrection; so I really want to find out whether God exists first. This is my personal approach: not everyone has to approach it like this! :) ]
Majesty of Reason Cool just wanted to ask. Since you were an agnostic I wasn’t sure if you would employ a probabilistic framework where God was possible to assess Historical arguments such as what Swinburne attempts to do.
@@MajestyofReason Well if God doesn’t exist than the explanation by definition has to be naturalistic. Because someone rising from the dead is pretty supernatural.
@@MajestyofReason Moses was the same agnostic looking for this God on the mountain. but of course lucky moses gets all the proof in the world. may be if your intelligence like moses and meet . please let us know if you do? i know our interest would be the same.
@CJ Baierl Being born is rising from the dead naturally? 🤔🤔🤨🤨😂
I personally identify as a pantheist. I have done so ever since I read the book, "Pantheism: A Non-Theistic Conception of Deity," by Michael P. Levine. It's an excellent book and I recommend it highly (it is highly academic and heavy going). The author is not a pantheist himself.
I am a student of Vedanta, and it surprises me that there are parallels between Brahman and the classical notion of God. There are differences too of course, but simplicity, timeless, immutability, are all ways one might describe Brahman. I'm not sure about impassibility, although Brahman's nature is described as satcitananda, which is commonly translated being-consciousness-bliss. I also understand that bliss might not be a very good translation for ananda.
*Pantheism: A Non-Theistic Conception of Deity," by Michael P. Levine.*
The author of that book is wrong, because pantheism is not non-theistic. It's still theistic.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
"16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."
Consistently Pray for forgiveness, guidance in a good (positive) direction, and for help against evil. Pray to be saved from hell (whatever that may be). Pray for your friends and your family too, it only takes a minute or so/less at a time to pray. Do it and your life will slowly get better, or maybe quickly. It probably just depends on you and the kind of person you are/have been. Don't wait until its too late and you have to suffer the consequences of built up bad karma from immoral acts/unrepented sins. Maybe together we can help make the world a better place by changing ourselves for the better, and changing things around us for the better.
And addressing/thanking the CREATOR, LORD GOD at the beginning and end of your prayers would be a good idea 😊
Or just be my friend if you don't want to say the prayer 😄
I'm trying to help you get right with the LORD 🙏
Amen.
I have worded a short prayer for you to say if you are not sure what words to use, it may not be the best but here it is 😊
'' CREATOR, LORD GOD,
Please forgive me and my friends and my family for our immoral acts, please help guide us in a positive direction and please help us against evil. Please save us from Hell and have mercy on our souls. Thank you CREATOR, LORD GOD. Amen. ''
Please say this at least once a day for at least a month, do it longer if you want to and can 😊🙏
You should prostrate yourself if you don't want to do spoken prayer, or do both ☺🙏🙏 Please worship the LORD GOD and not any idol.
Say ' Om Namah Shivaya ' out loud or in your head 108 times, or try to do it 1008 times 😊 try to do it everyday if you want
14:00 Draper's definition of Naturalism is really Materialism. Naturalism should be a broader thesis, close to what Oppy describes.
I like David Chalmers's view on Naturalism (I'm paraphrasing big time): If you can explain something by causal relations leading to some fundamentals laws, then this thing is natural. Naturalism would then be the thesis that everything is natural (as explained above). Property Dualism and even Substance Dualism are so compatible with Naturalism, as long as you can find causal relations leading to fundamental laws that would explain the relationship between soul and body. (even if these laws are not strictly called "physical" laws.)
Libertarian Free-will (understood as being the ability to act independently of a precedent causal chain) and the concept of God would then fall under Supernaturalism, because presumably you can't find some fundamental laws from which you can describe these things and their behavior.
This analysis was all well and good but it really amazes me how most academics seem to only care about conceptions of theism that correspond to the theism they were exposed to in their cultural tradition.
Annoying math nitpick incoming: If you're 50/50 on Non-classical theism (I'm reading this as all theism that is not classical theism) and 0.2-0.3 on supporting classical theism then since these two cannot overlap you're .7-.8 in favor of theism and not agnostic by your own definition given initially. Humans are not good at probability.
I was very interested in the book you mentioned “Models of God and Alternative Ultimate Realities” however it is like $160 -$300
So maybe the publisher can give you a promo code or something because that price is harder to justify than any philosophical position in the video
Yeah, it has an *insane* price. There are (illegal but unenforced) ways to get the book for free, but I’m not going to say more than that lol. I don’t want to encourage the public to break the law haha
Just commenting here while in the midst of watching at 12:50. I've never understood "naturalism" or "the physical", or what it even means. If God exists, then God is "natural". If not, then why not? The eternal, necessary being for which everything else was brought forth seems pretty "natural" to me. Nothing could be more "natural" than that which has always existed and must exist (if God exists by necessity).
Everything previously not known exist, and then is discovered, becomes "natural". I've always maintained that even for a complete empiricist naturalist, even if YHWH Himself appeared in front of every human being on earth and roared "I am GOD, and I created the universe!" that would do nothing to disprove naturalism. It seems to me that in an infinite multiverse there's almost certainly some advanced life-form that can do those sort of things, yet would have a perfectly natural explanation. It seems to be perfectly untenable question begging.
Either way, I'm VERY early on in my journey to try to sort of understand these subjects, and you are far, far ahead of me! :) You seem an extremely rational person and I already like listening to your reasoning.
Much love
The guy who told you he subscribed yesterday is here
Much love
Hi, you said that you take Creatio ex Deus very seriously, so what are your thought on Pandeism?
Hey Joe I really love your stuff and I resonated with a lot in this video - I do have one question. I noticed you said you rejected pantheism and I was wondering if there's any particular reason why? As someone studying philrel in university I sometimes worry that there is a tendency in the field to focus almost entirely on monotheism as if eastern conceptions of ultimate reality or God are just in principle flawed. I definitely have fallen prey to this, I pretty much focus exclusively on Christianity and arguments for the sort of being in line with monotheism, but I wonder how much of this is influenced by a bias towards Western ideas in the academy. At least in some sense with my limited knowledge of these non-western conceptions, they sometimes strike me as less prone to fall to Draper-esque Bayesian evidence objections which have always been a powerful argument in my mind against an omni-God.
You bring up a good point about that kind of potential bias in the academy.
I haven't studied pantheism in much depth, so I can't speak much about it here. If you want my honest view, it seems somewhat odd or prima facie implausible to my mind. According to some popular versions of it, there is only one substance -- nature or God (they're the same). This has lots of defeasible problems off the bat (e.g. it seems obvious and common sensical that you and I are distinct, really existent substances). It also seems... well... not very religiously significant. [e.g. nature doesn't seem to be able to answer prayers, or care about us, or what have you]. But more research needed. :)
I'm very late to the party. Just spitballing and my brain is smooth but
I've never been too bothered by natural 'evil'. The suffering of life which, through evolution, gave rise to mankind is something which God may have good reason to allow. For example, it may have been necessary for God to actualise this possible world because it brings forth the most amount of people who willingly believe *and* the least amount of people who disbelieve *and* the least amount of people who had no choice (e.g. unborn).
I also don't find it that concerning when the Christian faith holds that all life will experience the resurrection. Good and bad people, alongside all life to have ever lived. While the suffering isn't undone, I'd say that's better than nothing.
When it comes to horrors, human evil, I'd say the actions *are* impermissable and Hell was created with such actions in mind. Lets say you took joy in any one of the actions mentioned. No amount of joy from such evil would be worth the eternal torment in Hell. With this in mind, I'm content with people being free to do many things, seeing as God doesn't want puppets; but also because unrepentant evil people *will* get their comeuppance. Again, I think there's possible reason for God to allow such evil in this possible world. For this evil it may be more difficult to believe in a feasible reason but we don't have an exhaustive list of feasible reasons, or even possible reasons.
If God is able to do all sorts of things like raise the dead or create the universe out of himself (whatever that means and looks like) can't he have made the universe out of nothing? They both sound just as miraculous and just as problematic.
I quite like the Franciscan belief that God doesn't think but just knows things. If God needs to have self-consciousness to know He exists then perhaps the Trinity can suffice for this?
For Divine Simplicity, I'm sure I've come across Aquinas' which states God has no nature (so he isn't identical with himself) and Augustine's which says he does have nature; or at least Milbank who used the latter version employed it to mean that. A DS which allows for nature sounds interesting and might beat those pesky hipster neo-classical theists!
I disagree with the killing of the canaanites being genocide. The command was to kill anyone who didn't flee. I think the comments above re human evil are relevant but so is the fact that everyone who died before Christ's death on the Cross are said to have been preached to and saved when Christ descended into Hell - this is known as the Harrowing. I'm happy with the command because the people were evil and it's completely within God's right as ruler to kill and again, those people were later saved by Jesus from eternal punishment.
Religious exclusivism in Christianity is only found in Christ informing us that He's the only way to salvation and the religion that He created is *the* religion to be a part of. Other parts of the Bible inform the reader that the existence of God (not necessarily faith in Jesus) is clear to see. Since it's entirely possible for unborn children to be saved without a confession of faith, I could see it being possible that some tribe or "innocent" (as you mentioned at the start) is saved even if they don't confess. This does beg the question "If God wants as many people in heaven as possible, why didn't He make us all "innocents" or tribes, or kill us all at birth?" but this is a misunderstanding of what God wants. It seems God wants as many confessors of faith in heaven as possible. Meaning, God would want to maximise the number of people who lived life and believed in Him.
On the other hand, inclusivism makes it so that any or most religions are routes to salvation or the after life (even if they contradict) which means you could expect everyone to be in heaven and no one to be in Hell - no one to suffer for what they've done.
ECT makes total sense and temporary or non conscious makes no sense. Similar to the above comment, any amount of joy through sinning is worth any amount of punishment if someone eventually goes to heaven after the punishment. If the punishment ends and the individual doesn't go to heaven, it weakens the sense of eternal joy in heaven. If someone believes and loves others and is then saved, enters eternal paradise, why shouldn't the person who wasn't saved have the opposite reward? Sinning is said to be a way one cuts themself off from God. They don't want the "life" God gives to those around Him. So in being placed in Hell, God is allowing someone to live life, fully alive, but in the constant pain of what it's like to be constantly dying- as that's what it's like to not be given the gift; it's something they chose.
Minds and matter, it mightn't help to know this but the dualism is a modern thing. Some theologians in the spirit of authorship known as Radical Orthodoxy reject the dualism. The way it seems to be, is that while we are body and soul, we aren't avatars in constructs. We are our bodies. All of you is found in all of you. There's not one bit you can point to and find only some soul or some body. This is similar to the rejection of appolinarianism which stated one could differentiate between the two natures of Christ (man/God). All of God and man were found in all of Jesus. Maurice Merleau-Ponty is a source of this I think.
Going from mind to matter for the theist, I quite like idealism for this but I get told off for liking it hahah. I don't get why people think it means we're made of mental stuff because I'd have thought God perceiving us, actualises us. He can know every possible world, including ours, but will ours into perception.
I'm not sure I quite understand the stage two cosmological problems but I'm happy with God being limited either by logical necessity or by nature. For example it's within His nature to only desire certain things, he can't make a square circle.
This was written at 1 am
Thanks for coming to my Tedx Write
A dialectical note: It looks like 3 or so of the against theism section should be seperated between being against perfect being theism and deism Certain atheists make what I call the informal fallacy of concession. For example, "the Kalam doesn't have God in the conclusion." It's as if by conceding the argument, they've "won." But of course, no one is claiming the conclusion of the Kalam is "Therefore, God exists. If it is successful, they should be compelled to lessen their credence in (a certain form) of naturalism. So while ECT, PoE, etc should be taken seriously by Christians for example, they pose no problem to deists at all. One could rationally believe a God exists apart from any religious tradition. There are arguments for God being defined by the 3 omnis, but let's assume one or more fail. If such a God exists, virtually all religions are wrong, but then of course all atheists are as well! Hence the atheist rarely argues *for* naturalism but only offers an internal critique of PBT, and in fact argue for deism. Both families of arguments should be considered for the inquiring mind.
I do get that a common atheist argument is "if God exists, he is evil" but I don't think that scores any epistemic points as it were. A theist can make claims about the nature of things on naturalism (think Plantiga's EAAN) but that doesn't make him "right" unless he believes it and it's true. Otherwise, one could make all kinds of predictions about the nature of reality and be right no matter what.
Really good. I'm curious what your thoughts on non-classical theistic systems like Gaudiya Vaishnavism would be (which has panentheistic elements, a non-exclusivist ontology, repeated attempts for salvation and possibility for soul-making through reincarnation, etc.).
Thanks
@@MajestyofReason you should invite Good eastern Philosophers to talk about different Eastern philosophy in your future it will be nice
Have you ever talked to Dr. Ryba at Purdue? I find his phenomenological method for examining religious beliefs as a fascinating approach to look at (and evaluate) more tangible things involved in different theistic traditions. He's also just a great human to talk to about literally any theological/philosophical paradigm or to do an independent study in philosophy with if you have time. Highly recommend. I don't think I've met anyone more well-read than him. Also, if you haven't read Ockham's epistemic/semi-agnostic writings on less physically tangible concepts (like the soul), or John of Salisbury's take on sympathizing with skepticism (in Metalogican), you should. There's some harmonies with admitting the unknowable while still professing belief in Medieval Philosophy in both thoughts, which I think are very great discussion points. You remind me of Jordan Peterson (how you think and articulate arguments), and it's honestly a very refreshing, humanitarian approach toward genuinely seeking truth. We definitely need more of this kind of civil, intellectual dialogue in our culture today. If you ever go down the rabbit hole of the internet and want to watch some really engaging discussions/arguments I would watch any of Peterson's discussions with Robert Barron. Enjoyed your video :) Would love to talk philosophy if we ever cross paths.
Peterson's approach seems so unfinshed confusing as if the higher were only meant for God? the rest are pretty well screwed. Dare to say you believe in God is not in scriptures understanding as Jordan makes his God aproach witch is man not all way's trusted.
This did indeed serve me
Great video schmid, as always.
I was wondering about your opinion on deism ? I mean people asked you about the case for Christianity or Islam on a historical basis, but if we assumed that u are philosophically convinced of god, do you imagine yourself rejecting all these historical proofs and becoming a deist? Because I myself find all historical proofs to be very unconvincing and i also find religious pluralism to convince me that religions are false, so I can't imagine myself following a particular religion, do you feel the same?
How personal one gets is your answer.
You mentioned various definitions of naturalism. I'm a fan of Alfred North Whitehead, and I thought perhaps his view on materialism might be relevant. In Science and the Modern World, he wrote: “There persists, however, throughout the whole period the fixed scientific cosmology that presupposes the ultimate fact of an irreducible brute matter, or material, spread throughout space in a flux of configurations. In itself such a material is senseless, valueless, purposeless. It just does what it does do, following a fixed routine imposed by external relations which do not spring from the nature of its being. It is this assumption that I call 'scientific materialism. . . . Also, it is an assumption which I shall challenge as being entirely unsuited to the scientific situation at which we have now arrived. It is not wrong if properly construed. If we confine ourselves to certain types of facts, abstracted from the complete circumstances in which they occur, the materialistic assumption expresses these facts to perfection. But when we pass beyond the abstraction, either by more subtle employment of our senses, or by the request for meanings and for coherence of thoughts, the scheme breaks down at once. The narrow efficiency of the scheme was the very cause of its supreme methodological success. For it directed attention to just those groups of facts which, in the state of knowledge then existing, required investigation."
Nice video. One thing I haven't seen you discuss in detail: where do you take Leibniz's view to err?
Do you mean Leibniz's view on this being the greatest possible world? Or do you mean his view of abstracta as ideas in the divine intellect? Or... :)
@@MajestyofReason
It's related to the former, but more than that. Leibniz has some interesting views on modality that are perhaps dismissed too quickly in contemporary discussions (though there's been some recent pushback, to be sure). In brief, he has a way of accepting a *kind* of necessitarianism without collapsing all possible worlds into the actual world; Martin Lin's article "Rationalism and Necessitarianism" is worth checking out. Or maybe see the NDPR review of Michael Griffin's "Leibniz, God, and Necessity" for a quick introduction. The upshot is that Leibniz's "necessitarianism" probably shouldn't be any more troubling to us than run of the mill determinism. Of course if you're committed to LFW you won't find it attractive regardless, but I've always been extremely skeptical of LFW.
Needless to say all this is quite controversial, but I was interested in hearing your thoughts.
Love your videos Joe,but I do got a question. When you talk about the alone world what do you mean it's intristciliy contigent on God? And how does that follow from your third version of the alone argument?
Hey! Thanks for the comment
@@MajestyofReason Sorry I should have been more clear, I want to know how is God choosing not to create make him contigent on this fact?
@@studioofgreatness9598 No worries!
So, I did not claim that "God choosing not to create makes God contingent on this fact". So, that is not part of my arguments. It may help to direct me to what precise minute/second of the video that you would like clarification on. :)
@@MajestyofReason Okay I rewatch the first part of the alone argument and now I understand lol. My bad Joe. I was basically asking what you men by intristic/contingent parts of God but I watch the part where you explain it thanks Joe.
@@studioofgreatness9598 Much love
Great video! Btw, have you seen Rationality Rule's "opening statement" in response to Cameron from Capturing Christianity? If so, what did you think of it?
I did! I thought it was, well, sub-par. On the positive side: Steven is correct to emphasize the gap problem (inferring 'God' from 'at least one uncaused concrete object')
@@MajestyofReason Yeah, I agree. It was pretty underwhelming. Also, just curious, but why do you reject open theism?
@@tanner955 The main reason is because I accept bivalence (for all p, either p v ~p is true), and I accept that foreknowledge is compatible with free will. Cf. my previous video and the comments thereon. :)
Hey Joe! Have your veiws changed since making this video such as leaning more towards theism/atheism?
Really curious to hear more from you after you've looked more into evolutionary debunking arguments. I find the EAAN to be extremely persuasive for myself, would love to hear more thoughts from you on it.
Do you have me on Facebook? If you DM me, I can send you an informal discussion I had with a PhD student on the EAAN wherein I leveled criticisms toward it [it's only about 1,800 words as a discussion, so it's quite digestible!]
I dont know about the EAAN anymore. I find Hoffmans work very persuasive in showing that our cognitive faculites are not designed for truth, and so theism+evolution wouldn't be a proper alternative to naturalism+evolution. The only other solution is the one Hoffman gives, that things like logic, math, and belief formation are targets of different selection pressures than our perceptions of objects, so this saves theism+evolution but also saves naturalism + evolution
@@TheBrunarr Assuming you mean Donald Hoffman the cognitive psychologist? I have not read much/any of his work, honestly just seen his well-known ted talk. I thought his work mostly was discussing how our sensory perception of reality may be skewed, which to me seems to be mostly irrelevant to the EAAN, which is primarily concerned with the truth of things like metaphysical beliefs. I'm not sure how different selection pressures saves both theism and naturalism. The entire point of the EAAN is that it's extremely difficult to tell a purely materialist story where adaptive behavior would necessarily map onto true belief content, rather than false belief content. However, I might be misinterpreting your point here...?
@@philster5918 The main point is that belief formation isn't necessarily subjected to the fitness-beats-truth theorem. If that's true, then naturalism + evolution doesn't have the problem that the argument is trying to show it does. If belief formation is necessarily subjected to the fitness-beats-truth theorem then that means it would be true on theism as well, so it's not clear how theism + evolution would solve the problem.
@@TheBrunarr OK, I sincerely apologize, because I'm really not following you here. What part of Hoffman's work shows that belief formation isn't necessarily subjected to the fitness-beats-truth theorem? I agree with you that if there was a mechanism that allowed for truth-beats-fitness, naturalism has no problem, but that mechanism just seems incredibly unlikely to me on naturalism.
I also don't follow your second point, but let's hash out the first one first =)
Hey Joe, got to this video a little late, I see you’re on sort of a spiritual journey right now and theres probably atheists and Christians alike in your comment sections telling you to come to their side 😂😂. If you did come to the conclusion beyond most doubt that God exists, would you then become a Christian because of the case for the resurrection? Or just a theist for some time and eventually transition if the evidence is ever good enough?
Much love
@@MajestyofReason a muslim theist :)
Is there some way you could post Oppys definition of "natural"?
He goes through a number of different proposals over the span of a number of pages in his book 'Naturalism and Religion'. :)
just what we need . more gods makes personality. Why its confusing enough dealing with the understanding of just 1 god. God the one who promises but may be changes his mind or Repents.
Can I ask does agnostic requires faith?
Mega resources on Theism at Linkapalooza: www.reddit.com/r/Noachide/wiki/resources
And on DDS: www.reddit.com/r/Noachide/comments/9wmh9r/want_to_understand_gd_contemplate_his_oneness
Why am I agnostic? I don't know 😏
Have you read Perry Hendricks' defenses of Michael Bergmann's skeptical theism? They seem very plausible, if not decisive in favor of skeptical theism (at least as a phenomenal conservative myself). It wouldn't surprise me if you have read them since you are at Purdue. What are your thoughts on them?
Also, have you read Michael Huemer's works critiquing the use of simplicity/Ockham's razor in philosophy, or his liberal moral progression points against evolutionary debunking arguments? What do you think of them?
Wouldn't it be possible to rephrase what you say in the "getting meta" part about how our minds are so small while the literature is so big in order to formulate a kind of argument against theism, not that dissimilar from the problem of divine hiddenness? Something like the extreme difficulty of getting to know whether there is a god or not goes against the likely desire of God of getting us to know that he exists so that we can orientate our lives to better reflect his nature/desires? This would be especially strong against exclusivist religions (even more those that include ECT) but even inclusivist versions would have some explaning to do. For example, it would be quite strange if God in order to achieve salvation required of us to know whether M-theory is true or not, given how difficult it is for the average person to actually understand and study that stuff. Even if salvation was all but assured for everyone, it would still be strange for God to create a world where knowing about M-theory is either necessary or strongly reccomended to live the good life AND this difficult to understand/study.
Speak for your elf why don't you? every body practice these thoughts.
Is this still your current opinion ?
I would be interested to know if you have read the following books?
Christopher Hughes - Aquinas on Being, Goodness, and God
Anthony Kenny - The Five Ways: St Thomas Aquinas’ Proofs of God’s Existence
Anthony Kenny - Aquinas on Being
under correspondence theories cant proposition be truth in relation to. so truth would not be a property but a relation
Wonderful presentation! I’m very impressed. You should investigate the Eastern Orthodox model of God. It has a lot in common with Neo-Classical Theism and Panentheism. I would check out Jay Dyer’s TH-cam channel and set up a conversation with him. Believe me it will be well worth it. I’m praying for you. Continue to humbly seek out the truth and God will reveal Himself to you. I wish you nothing but the best.
Arab Christian?
i still don't see how anyone can get from universal creator god exists, to any particular religious god or doctrine. It seem to allow for all possible religions and god types to be true. Such creator could create infinitely many creators, or polytheistic gods. Each planet in the universe could have its own god. I can be agnostic on a universal creator for sure but ultimately it would still be unknown to any details of such god, so I would be atheistic on any religious god.
Your perceived ‘order’ in reality is not really an argument for any god. I think you need a good dose of physics in your metaphysics. There are indications that it may simply be the case that things cannot be arranged in other ways. This is aside from the fine tuning issue. There are many possible universes without fine tuning that would have laws that can be expressed in mathematical terms. I don’t think you can jump to ‘I can imagine worlds without laws of physics’. You can but that doesn’t mean they could exist. You also seem to be easily seduced by consciousness, which is an area of scientific uncertainty. We just don’t know enough about it to know how ‘miraculous’ it is. It is likely that it confers evolutionary advantages to social creatures. Also, there is not free will in any real sense. It’s a reasonably good model to speak about human beings and other creatures, but in no way it violates the laws of physics; so you, as a collection of particles, will obey the laws of physics, period. So, the most intractable out of all of your arguments for theism is fine tuning. Again, we don’t know enough, but it could well be the case that those parameters cannot be otherwise based in some more fundamental laws we have not discovered yet, or it might be that we are in the universe that had the right values out of many different universes that exist. There are quite solid versions of the multiverse that contemplate this. If we knew for a fact that those values could be otherwise or that it is not possible for there to be other universes with other values, then fine, but there ways in which there can be other universes and also there are ways in which it may turn out that those values could not have been different. The uncaused cause is another issue, as there is nothing to say that the cosmos itself is not eternal. There are various models for this. Remember the big bang was not ex nihilo.
I disagree with the first bullet point...believing in something is a fair concept and if this something is a well defined proposition it is not unfair to call it a belief...and if this proposition is well defined and can only have one interpretation than can't multiple people adhere to the same "belief"?
Do you?
Hey Joe. Would you be open to having Liz Jackson on? If you consider Neo-Classical Theism and Panenthism at 0.5 or just a belief in a God of that sort at 0.5 then Pascal's Wager might be for you! The decision matrix though might look like a nightmare if you include all that info though. Liz might have her work cut out for her lol. :)
Wonderful idea! Actually, fun fact, she is on my list of people to reach out to (precisely for Pascal's Wager)!
Klaas Kraay isn’t a theist? I haven’t read any of his material, but, just from the titles and abstracts I have read, they always seemed to imply that he was.
Good question! Come to think of it, I'm actually not sure. At the time I put the presentation together, I had been under the impression he wasn't a theist; but now I'm unsure. My apologies if I'm wrong!!! [I very well could be :) ]
Hi guys. Joe this was an amazing video! I just finished my MA at Ryerson university and I studied with Klaas. He is a theist as far as I know. Although, its hard to tell sometimes because he is so intellectually humble and open to arguments. He is super nice so send him an email if you want. I could set you up ;)
@@joshuabrecka6012 Thank you for the correction!!!
1:37:21 should have said “to its limits” haha
wait a second, Joe is an agnostic?! Give me my money back!
(I assumed Joe was a Christian from his baby blue V-neck sweater)
Seems like the only real thing "god" desires is confusion and divisiveness.
That points to a really, *really* interesting argument from religious diversity and religious ambiguity against God's existence. Justin Scheiber (in his book with Randal Rauser) defends a version of this argument.
For me, I think God could have quite good reason for allowing religious ambiguity: loving insight flow across ideological barriers.
Of course, it's inherently risky, since we can instead choose wars, tribalism, and xenophobia. But it's all about creating the *context* for the values and virtues to flourish with some risk and indeterminism. :)
@@MajestyofReason Hmm. Maybe. So, if I was born in India in like 600BC, it'd be too bad for me because of religious ambiguity? Seems like most of god's "plans" are not really that effective. Most religions were spread by war. Where's the loving insight in that?
I get that you live "as if" you're agnostic in the sense that you seek arguments from both sides, etc. but that still doesn't answer whether you live as if God exists. If you think it's as likely to be true as false, do you tithe and everything, just in case? To whom? How exactly does this belief that it's credible affect your behavior? 🤷♂
Thank You. I claim to be a " Theist" but don't have sufficient proof for it. So maybe I'm a " closet" agnostic.
I have a question, what if you believe that fundamental reality involved mental properties but just not the type we think of when we refer to god. Like panpsychism. It would get rid of the construction problem. Matter just has mental properties. Or is composed of both the mental and physical. I suggest looking into david chalmers.
David Chalmers is legendary, I love the guy. :)
If you're more atheistic towards some models of God and more of an agnostic towards others, then the best description as a whole would be a non-theist, which I argue should be a more prevalent descriptor.
Could have put all that wasted typing in a couple words.
I'm atheistic to some model of God too! I'm still a theist though
@@toonyandfriends1915 Yes, but there's an asymmetry in attitudes here.
For a theist, it's sufficient that you believe in some version of divinity and by implication you're addressing all other possible models. You might not know everything about the divine you believe in, but you believe you know some things and all models that deny what you know are false (and you should arguably believe in that about as strongly as you believe in your version of the divine).
For someone like me, I might have different positions towards different models - none of them as a believer. Why should I choose just one label from many, why should I give preference to some groups of believers above others when addressing this problem as a whole? The only way to address the whole issue for me, at least approximately, is by the lowest common denominator, that is: I'm not a theist about any of them, but for different reasons (this is not just about a psychological state).
@@krzyszwojciech Theistic models only describe different types of divinity, but they are still about a divinity. I believe that you could hold metaphysical models or views of the world that addresses every type of theistic models as less plausible or having less explanatory power/plausibility then the ones you currently hold. Such as metaphysical naturalism or physicalism/materialism. By the law of non contradiction, if you feel that these metaphysical claim explains the world better than the existence of any divinity or supernatural power, then it would mean you'd be an atheist. It doesn't really matter if you think the classical god is more plausible than zeus, as you'd ultimately think that all of them are less plausible than them non existing.
Therefore it wouldn't really matter what version of divinity we are talking about, since your views would reject all of them as false.
However it is possible you seem that some metaphysical views are more plausible than others hence your credence and how firm you are to your position may vary. But this credence only got affected by some models that you found plausible, and not by some others which you found implausible. If you are an epistemological agnostic, then it doesn't matter which theory of divinity we address, as we cannot know any of them. If you are just an agnostic that thinks that "the evidences are counterbalanced (as joseph likes to say)" then you think that a divinity existing is as plausible as a divinity not existing . It really does not matter which type of divinity we are talking about, as this ultimately shows that you cast doubt to other metaphysical views that atheists might hold too. To be fair you could be an atheist and also reject materialism and think for example consciousness is immaterial (David Chalmers), but this could make the existence of an immaterial divinity more likely.
At 57:14 you said that god is essentially three persons, so each person should also be essentially three persons, so it should be nine persons. But you’re assuming that the three persons of god all have a unique set of three persons, which they don’t have to. The holy spirits 3 persons could be the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. The son can have the same 3 persons as the Holy Spirit , and the father can have the same 3 persons
"The holy spirits 3 persons could be the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. "
If I understand correctly, that would mean the holy spirit is three persons, and one of those three persons is the holy spirit. But if only one of those three persons is the holy spirit, then how can the holy spirit be three persons?
@@chad969 that would indeed be problematic, this falls into the “Russell’s paradox”. A set cannot contain itself. That leads to contradictions.
What would you say is the best response to the randomness objection to libertarian freedom?
"Oh, I see. Well, I guess there is no libertarian free will then." ;)
Long winded intro. Thank you for your good intentions
Jesus is King.
@Majesty of Reason Hi, I'm new here - and am really enjoying the video! You may answer this later on, but what would convince you that theism is true?
Good question! I discuss that near the end of the following [linked] video :)
th-cam.com/video/3ehF_Sp-mvQ/w-d-xo.html
@@MajestyofReason Just finished your video on why you are an agnostic, and you've got yourself a new sub :). I'm just a teen with no real philosophy training, so finding channels like this is highly useful.
What do you make of a sceptical theist response (on the backdrop of temporal butterfly effects) to the problem of animal suffering?
@@calebp6114 Much love
Hmm, would you say panpsychism can not be squared with naturalism? It seems to me that your definition of naturalism would rule it out (though I might be totally mistaken, I am only superficially familiar with panpsychism).
Good question! I'm not quite sure. A number of panpsychists say that their view is decidedly non-naturalist. But others say they're naturalist. Defining 'naturalism' is just really, really messy lol.
@@MajestyofReason I see, thanks for quick answer! :)
What do you think of Theistic conceptual realism?
While I need to research it further, I would argue that (i) it is incompatible with classical theist (but sits nicely with Neo-CT and panentheism), but (ii) I think properties, propositions, etc. must be *prior* to thoughts/concepts (e.g. something already has to have the property of being able to think in order for its thoughts to be able to ground any properties to begin with). If you're curious, I articulate about 10 distinct problems for theistic conceptualism in my video "non-traditional arguments for theism". I think it was part 1 of the 2-part series.
Majesty of Reason Hence why I’m a neo-classical theist (or personalist) ;)
But thanks for your input!
@@lucashondros3418 Much love
@Majesty of Reason I’m trying to get more into philosophy and I was hoping you could tell me what’s wrong with this philosophical argument.
P1 omnipotence means the capability of doing anything logically possible.
P2 God is omnipotent.
P3 it is logically impossible to create something from nothing.
C1 therefor god could not have created he universe ex nihilo.
Not Majesty of Reason, but I think the problem with your argument is that you haven’t demonstrated that it’s logically impossible to create something from nothing. Of course, this worry about creatio ex nihilo is a valid concern and it’d be justified to say something like “the Kalam requires creatio ex nihilo to be true and because I find that very unconvincing, I will reject the argument”. However, it’s not a good enough reason for someone who’s already a theist who holds to the doctrine. Creatio ex nihilo just seems to be an axiom which which some people may accept and others will reject. Note: There are classical theists and other Aristotelians who hold that the universe is eternal so the theist can just fallback on another position.
@@crabking6884 thanks I appreciate the pointers.
Wait, so do you accept free will? I'm not done with the video yet but you mention free will as potential supporting evidence for neo-classical theism, does that imply that you actually believe in it? Or am I just confused?
So, essentially, I would say *if* free will exists, then it seems to provide evidence for theism. And, moreover, I attach a probability higher than 0.5 to the antecedent of that conditional (though I'm quite tentative). And note that I'm including both libertarian and compatibilist free will here. :)
@@MajestyofReason I see that makes sense. Out of curiosity, what is your position on free will given your agnosticism?
Regarding 'fine-tuning', if the world did not exhibit some degree of order or stability we wouldn't have been able to evolve and we wouldn't be here to wonder about it. There is an observation-selection effect at play here. So I personally don't find the existence of order to be convincing evidence for theism. Here's a great paper which deals with this topic:
The Anthropic Principle Does Not Support Supernaturalism
by Michael Ikeda and Bill Jefferys
quasar.as.utexas.edu/anthropic.html
Hey, man - nice talk.
Though I must say that I truly wonder how little time you put aside for consciousness. Consciousness is the primal thing, how come do you give it so little attention?
With it none of this matters (pun intended). Also consciousness is the only permanent substance (consciousness and existence), everything else is subjected to change. I don't equate consciousness with mind. Mind is changing, but the thing by which mind is known (by consciousness) is static. Can you argue that consciousness is dynamic, changing in any way?
So I'd say that existence and consciousness gotta deserve more attention, because even attention is predicated by consciousness, else you wouldn't even know of attention.
- what is common to everything that you know? Existence. Thing are. That's undeniable.
...Maybe you can dispute it? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this if you ever get the time.
And by which is everything known? Consciousness.
So if I'd attach ANY attributes to god, and I don't usually think that way, I'd say that existence and consciousness are the primal principles.
And I'd push it even further...
Existence + consciousness -> experience.
Actually to be more technical I'd also distinct between consciousness and awareness. But it doesn't matter for now, as I'm not sure you'll answer this at all.
Did Neanderthals have consciousness? If there is a god, let’s the Christian god, did God give Neanderthals consciousness? What about chimpanzees? They have rituals, recognize themselves in mirrors, have a sense of right and wrong and many of the same things a person would attribute to consciousness.
And my dogs pay attention to the surroundings around them, pay attention to what I’m doing, they know when I’m upset, and recognize faces and people; so if consciousness and attention are important to you as a subject, would you say my dogs are just as conscious and attentive as a human?
@@thelostone6981 not the person you asked, but no, i would say no. also doubt some of that and ask for some good sources on it i think.
Great video, does anyone know what kind of causes/causation is being said at 1:02:15? it starts with a P ..Perise or Pedisai or something like that :d
per se causes :)
@@MajestyofReason ah, thanks my man. Still learning my philosophical terminology
I think theism is easier to be believed in the islamic sense one simple being instead of 3 in 1.
Great video. I really wasn't sure what to think about the whole "limits" thing either until quite recently. I'm guessing you've seen Rasmussen's argument from mere broadly logical possibility (even if that does not also characterize metaphysical posibility)? Or, as Josh puts it, from only the "truths of reason". For myself, reading the proof from the S5 axiom adapted for BL logical possibility and realizing that you can adapt all other modal cosmological arguments in terms of BL possibility to get a BL necessary being added a lot of plausibility to Koons' idea that changes in mere degrees of measurable attributes don't make a difference to a being's modal status (as well as Josh's proposals for means by which to optain modal knowledge, i.e. catagorical uniformity). All this makes a lot of sense to me when we're dealing only with logical relations of and between kinds. Of course, this opens up the door to the Kantian objection that existence is not a predicate etc. but I'm not so convinced by that. I'm curious what you think of this?
Ha! I have much to say and think about these proposals. I really need to work on some papers now, so I cannot discuss it in much depth. But I do think there are problems along the lines I specified in the video (necessary limits, desire problem, trinity problem, and other problems). :)
@@MajestyofReason trinity is well known of being 100% proved Man made. for it does not surly have any meaning in scripture.
I think there are societies that eat there dead, it is considers something like making the spirit of dead one a part of you etc.(dk if that is a mith) endocannibalism maybe dk
Hey, do you accept principle of sufficient reason?
Depends on the version, but -- generally -- yes.
I tend to accept the one which goes as follows : “Anything that exists has an explanation for its existence either in the necessity of its own nature or in a source external to it”
I am curious what do you think of Islamic concept of God.
Since Islam -- from what I'm aware -- affirms classical theism, it will inherit many of the problems I outline in my "Against: Classical Theism" section. :)
@@MajestyofReason Thank you for responding!
I prefer ignosticism.
What is your educational background?
I study philosophy and biology at Purdue University
God has not done anything for you, as oppose the good people in your life. A smile from a stranger, a hand out of food during this covid times, a "thank you" when you give someone something... people are gods. Don't give gratitude to someone who hasn't done anything for you.
“People are gods” 🤓
Maybe pagans don’t know but you guys are not invited into the atheism or agnosticism world
If you have anything other than a non-zero confidence in a god existing, whose existence entails eternal conscious torment (ECT) for those who do not believe in him, then doesn't the feeble pascal argument actually do some work here? If your credence is 0.2/0.3 that a theistic god exists, whose existence entails ECT for not doing what the god says, and if you are a rational creature who does not want to undergo ECT, then shouldn't you do what that god says? If, in your eyes, the probability of this god existing is around 20%, and the punishment for not doing what he says is infinite, then isn't irrational to not do what you believe (with 20% confidence) he wants?
I have been more honest with myself recently and found that I do believe gods (who entail ECT) do not exist, probably with a 99.5% confidence or something.. Despite the 0.5% confidence that one of these gods does exist, I feel I ought to be doing what I can to avoid ETC since the consequence is infinite, even if i give it such a small probability..
What are your thoughts?
I've never felt the force of Pascal's reasoning. Cultivating moral and intellectual virtue is intrinsically valuable, and it is for this reason that I strive to cultivate them. If there happens to be an extrinsic reward for this (heaven as opposed to ECT), then fine; if not, then fine. Either way, someone who seeks, loves, and pursues the true and good (albeit falling short, as is human nature) is surely living up to the moral commands of any perfect being worthy of the name
@@MajestyofReason Yea if moral realism is true, then I would agree with you. That is how I used to look at it. But I guess I am a moral anti-realist now... I am really really struggling right now trying to make sense of moral realism. I just don't know what is meant by "moral" or "good". To me it seems like people just use those words to express whether something is inline with their preferences.
When I talk to my theist friends, they say good means "in line with gods nature". So rationally speaking, if I care about my wellbeing and if I think there is a non-zero chance this god exists, then I ought to do what they are claiming is inline with gods nature, even if it entails killing/hurting other creatures. But I don't.. And it seems irrational.
Thank you for the response!
Why did you call me a bish :’(
Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD , and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Isaiah 55:6-7 KJV
The most powerful argument for atheism in my mind, is the apriori rejection of anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism. It seems as self-centered to me for us to think that the foundation of reality is a Person, as it would for a chicken to think the universe must have begun from a Cosmic Egg. This extends to all forms of anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism, including "only" saying that reality "has a purpose" and so on. Such positions seem a priori unlikely and incongruent with what neuroscience teaches us about mentality. It would require extraordinary evidence to convince me this view of reality is, against all science and cosmic-humility, nevertheless true.
In "For Classical Theism (Distinctively)":
If we take premise #4 to be "For a given type P, the existence of beings of type P can only be explained by a being not of type P." that might be fine.
My main problem is that premise #2 takes the union of the different types Ch = Changeable, Co = Composite, EED = Essence-Existence-Distinct, etc. and treats these types as a uniform type T for no real reason.
If Ch is explained by a non-Ch, and Co by a non-Co, EED by non-EED, etc. I see no reason to assume that all these explanations are one and the same.
Thanks for your comment
@@MajestyofReason Yay! A reply! Thank you! 🤗
I see, so if premises 2 and 4 are meant as "premise schemas" then I guess while "a changeless being exists", etc. follows, it needs extra steps to argue why these a priori different beings are possibly (let alone probably) the same being (2 and 4 to 5).
Has classical theism soundly made that step?
@@n0ccca I think there are arguments for this step. For instance, suppose we run the original argument schema and conclude to an absolutely simple//non-composite being. Well, we can derive pretty much all the other 'characteristics' from simplicity: (i) if the being had potential for change, then it would be a composite of actuality and potentiality; and since it's non-composite, it follows it has no potential for change, i.e. it's unchangeable; (ii) if essence and existence weren't identical within this being, then it would be a composite of essence and existence; since it's non-composite, its essence and existence are identical; and so on. :)
@@MajestyofReason That sounds fair, albeit suspicious: if simplicity can give us the other properties almost for free, it may ultimately give us some contradiction down the line (just an impression I have).
More relevantly, it does raise the question (I don't remember if the video addresses it) of "mutual" explanation:
If any being is simple if and only if it is not composite (truly complementary types), then premise 4 would seem to work both ways:
The existence of a composite being can only be explained by a simple being.
The existence of a simple being can only be explained by a composite being.
As if simplicity and compositeness were just two sides of the same unexplained coin, with no one side more fundamental than the other?
@@n0ccca "it may ultimately give us some contradiction down the line"
I agree that simplicity ends up causing many, many, many problems. :)
I don't think premise 4 would imply that; it's not as though a non-composite being explains a simple being and vice versa; rather, they are just *one and the same thing*, i.e. they are identical.
Thank you for this video, especially since it prompted me to do a bit of introspection regarding what I am or at least what I think I am.
I suppose I'm agnostic in the sense I don't hold to know that a god doesn't exist (as in I don't have 100% certainty a god doesn't exist), I have to consider the possibility of its existence and I'm open to proof towards that. However, if I were to put myself on a scale where 0 means I'm 100% convinced a god exists and 1 is I'm 100% convinced a god doesn't exist, I'd probably put myself somewhere close to 1. Perhaps 0.9 or 0.95. There rest is really just allowance for the possibility that I'm wrong (I am a limited and fallible being after all) and that sufficiently convincing proof may exist. Or perhaps proof does exist and I've not seen yet, or I've seen it but wasn't open-minded enough or intellectually able enough to understand it. Not sure if all this would qualify me as an atheist, or more of an agnostic atheist.
However when it comes to the existence of the classical Judeo-Christian god, I would have no qualms with calling myself purely an atheist. I'm not sure I would even want to live in a world where such a being existed, as I do not find it worthy of worship and would find the idea of it judging me based on my belief in it terrifying.
Considering my stance on this, all the while living in a predominantly Christian (Orthodox) country, I found it more practical to label myself in casual conversation simply as an atheist, as opposed to an agnostic atheist. Outside the realm of philosophical debate, the idea of god has a far reaching social and political impact and, in a country where the dominant religion still exerts a large amount of power over the secular state, I most certainly don't want to be perceived, even if inaccurately, as "sitting on the sidelines".
Also, I forgot to mention, this video seems like a very good place to start exploring some arguments that I, for one, was not aware of. Thank you for that as well!
@@razvanmazilu6284 Greece? Nevertheless, I don't understand why you're so against the idea of a Creator.