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"intuition" is an interesting subject. It isn't non-rational. It is based on observation, but it uses our cognitive biases to make logical jumps between seemingly disparate events. Often as not it's wrong, but when it hits it can seem amazing.
The bishop is a man with a crippled mind using faith as a crutch. We must be careful not to allow such charlatans to bastardize psychology and semantics in order to pimp the snake oil on which the intellect of so many is choked and stifled. The favorability and value afforded faith is the greatest misjudgment of humanity, and it would behoove us to remove religion from the head of the table and starve it of its protections and privileges.
@@MrLourie You sound triggered by the fact that you can't refute anything he's saying. Hence you resorted to childish nonsense. Unfortunately for you, and fortunately for humanity, religion is intrinsic to all humans. It can never be done away with. Here's the bishop speaking to you: th-cam.com/video/Xe5kVw9JsYI/w-d-xo.html
"Faith is a response to the revealing God" So if God has not revealed himself to me, I cannot have faith. Only someone who God has revealed himself to can have faith. If God reveals himself to me, why would I need faith?
@Joseph Norm I recognize that being a discussion in theology class... Do we seek God or does god seek us. What makes that some people who sincerely searched for god did not hear his calling, and some people appear to have heard him because their parents have?
My understanding is that in this generation at least we've all been "revealed" the same amount. Some have faith ie choose to believe, others don't. Personally I see good reasons both to believe and not to. I'm kind of on the fence which is why I watch videos like this one. I think one way to think about the Bible is like we do the Greek Myths. Not necessarily factual (and in some cases clearly not historically accurate) but bearer of deeper truths nonetheless. I have heard interpretations of the Old Testament myths (presented as such) that actually made a lot of ethical and symbolic sense. Literalism is for suckers and the God that would like you to suck up to him or else send you to hellfire is a sinister joke made up by religions. But I would not necessarily rule out something like "spirituality" to be a valuable endeavour. Some Greek philosophers made some pretty good cases for the existence of the soul btw..
@@mathieuL2204 The discriminating factor here is... Did god reveal himself to you? (What would that look like to you anyway? Do you, for example, think/believe that the Bible *IS* god revealing himself to you? Why do some Christians claim that god has revealed himself to them in more personal ways than just through the bible)
"Faith is a response to the revealing God" ... If he revealed himself then there's no need for faith. If faith is your response, then that's an indication that you're not 100% sure.
"A response to the revealing god" what does that even mean? Either you have evidence and you believe in reason or you dont have evidence and you believe on faith.
@@lucanus8997 Trust should not be exercised without applying logic. If I have lent a friend money multiple times in the past and he has consistently paid me back then I will have trust (or even "faith", if you will) that he will do likewise next time I lend him money. If somebody I've just met asks to borrow money then I will be at least entertaining the possiblility that he may screw me over. The idea that a god exists is basically the second guy.
It’s very sad that it went over your head ☹️. You can disagree while still understanding the position of the person on the other side. The claim of the Christian is that God literally revealed himself through the scripture, through the church and in the form of Christ, many people have had religious experiences along with that. It is not circular when they see the world they see design, they read the Bible and are compelled by it, God reveals himself through Christ and they have faith. “ Faith is the response to the revealing God.”
Does the Bishop think that every other clergy person of every other religion doesn't have as much faith in their belief system as he does in his? That shows how ludicrous faith is. When he talks about believing or not believing what someone says because you know them it again just faith. Has he never heard of con artists? Con artists make a living by convincing people to trust them when they are lying.
Yes, as Matt Dillahunty often points out, faith is demonstrably not a reliable path to knowledge or truth, and this guy doesn't even seem to know what faith is. He seems embarrassed to admit that faith is exactly what it is described as in his own holy book.
"Does the Bishop think that every other clergy person of every other religion doesn't have as much faith in their belief system as he does in his? That shows how ludicrous faith is." Does the astronomer think that every other astrologer doesn't have as much trust in their field as he does in his? That shows how ludicrous astronomy is. "When he talks about believing or not believing what someone says because you know them it again just faith. Has he never heard of con artists?" The simple fact that human nature is fallible should form the reasonable basis for some doubt when it comes to having faith (or trust) in a fellow human being. Con artists are humans, therefore they are fallible. On the other hand, some reasoned knowledge of God, including arguments that use logic to derive and establish God's nature such as immutability, simplicity, goodness, etc form the basis or context for trusting God and what he says.
@@Lerian_V All astronomers have more or less the same viewpoint, with some minor differences, and hold the same core beliefs, sustained by an overwhelming body of evidence. This is a very poor analogy. We know humans exist. Therefore the faith we put in each one of them can be based on a relationship that we actually know exists, demonstrated by actions perpetrated by known agents. We don't know that God exists, and the faith we may put in him is faith only in his existence. This is an entirely different type of faith.
@@ptolemyauletesxii8642 All Catholic clergies have more or less the same viewpoint, with some minor differences, and hold the same core beliefs, sustained by an overwhelming body of evidence. My analogy is a very good one. We know God exists. Therefore the faith we put in God can be based on a relationship that we actually know exists, demonstrated by actions perpetrated by known agents. We don't need faith to accept that God exists because we know that God exists. And you're correct that there are different types of faith: human/fallible faith and divine/infallible faith. A truth is intelligible to us only in so far as it is evident to us, and evidence is of different kinds; hence, according to the varying character of the evidence, we shall have varying kinds of knowledge. For example, we accept the statement that the sun is 93 million miles distant from the earth because competent veracious authorities vouch for the fact. This kind of knowledge is termed faith, and is clearly necessary in daily life. If the authority upon which we base our assent is human and therefore fallible, we have human and fallible faith; if the authority is Divine, we have Divine and infallible faith.
@@Lerian_V 'Does the bishop think that every OTHER clergy person of every OTHER religion doesn't have as much faith in THEIR belief system as HE does in HIS?' Your reading comprehension is at fault. The OP isn't talking about minor differences between one Catholic theologian and another. He's talking about the vast and irreconcilable differences between the claims of different religions, many of which directly contradict those of other religions, and almost none of which correspond to reality. This is NOTHING like astronomy, which is a relatively unified field of scientific inquiry, using data and observations to create reliable models, subject to modification when new observations and data become available. Your analogy is dreadfully inappropriate. We don't know God exists. YOU THINK God exists. There is a huge difference. You need to learn the difference between knowledge claims and belief claims, and how evidence works. The fact that you got your analogy so terribly wrong doesn't indicate that this is likely to happen any time soon, but I strongly suggest you look into this.
This is the kind of reasoning that makes perfect sense to everyone with a developed emotional commitment/identification to it... but is completely insane to everyone not starting on the inside.
Exactly. Bishop Barron is, as a priest would be, so wrapped up in his religiosity and his "faith on the basis of context" sentiment; his worldview denies him validating approaches to theology such as analytic philosophy. He presumes much that can't be proven true and for others to recognize this perceived truth as such. I was absolutely floored when he made the assertion that "believing in god is a reasonable thing" and then the "context" that one has from maintaining that belief makes it reasonable to assert that you could believe in the occurrence of some human having a divine interaction within "reason." Bonkers to me, conceivable to them.
@@Dani-kh8mh Believing in God is a reasonable thing. The "context" he talked about is for accepting by faith what God has revealed. You can't prove what you accepted by faith, but you have enough context to trust the person and what he tells you.
Did you take on his point of view and read the people he had cited in this video before you made this comment (i.e. all of Paul Tillich's work on the concept of faith)? I highly doubt it. Yet here you are, making your mind up regarding the concept of faith based on Cosmic Skeptic's views. It sounds like you just have 'faith' in the atheists viewpoint here...
@@Joeonline26 if you require an entire novel to explain one word (faith), you have a shitty definition. That or you have a shitty understanding of the word.
"Faith is a response to the revealing God", this is how he sums it up in the end, this seems to be in complete contradiction to the definition given in the Bible "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" Where in the Bible its the conviction of things not seen, it seems that a cornered Barren will just say the exact opposite to get out of the question.
@@lemonheadkw2493 Wow, what kind of invalid argument have you just advocated for? "If X cannot be defined in few words then you have a bad definition of X or a bad understanding of X". Honestly, think about how silly you sound making such an argument. And you're supposed to be the logical, rational atheist right? That's hilarious hahahaha
Very good editing choice to cut it at his last reply, without including your reply. A lot of time in a debate we feel the need to have the last word, but very often it is better to leave the last word to the opponent when it is clear to everyone listening that his reply is a losing argument.
"To teach a man religion is like a parent teaching a child to be loyal, or sober, or honest. If loyalty, or sobriety, or honesty become the sport of public debate and public contradiction, their moral force is weakened for those who wish to weaken them. And if the truth of religion becomes a matter of public debate in newspapers, the effect is not like a debate on the truth of utilitarian philosophy. Once religious beliefs are equated with philosophical opinions and so become matters of purely intellectual argument, skepticism has won." -- Owen Chadwick Bishop Barron errs by attempting to suggest that religion is justifiable on the basis of logic and argument. It isn't, and that's all that Alex O'Connor is (rightly) trying to say.
Personally, at the far side of reason instead of saying “I surrender. I accept this claim even though there isn’t enough evidence to support it” I instead say “I don’t know. I don’t have enough information to make an informed decision”. I’ll never understand why saying “I don’t know” is unacceptable to so many people. They need to have an answer and it doesn’t matter much to them whether the answer is actually correct.
Christianity is WAY beyond "I don't know". It is one of the religions that is LOGICALLY INCONSISTENT. There can be NO "all loving god" who PROMOTES and HANDS DOWN LAWS FOR SLAVERY: Leviticus 25 and Exodus 21. to say NOTHING of the genocide in the bible, and the slaughtering of innocents, including children, unborn fetuses and animals...
@@brianmi40 No argument here. It's difficult to tell people they have been indoctrinated when such a large percentage of the world believe this stuff. But if took an adult aside and told them we have discovered the real god... it turns out the actual god is one no-one had conceived of before... all other religions are wrong. Then we explained how this true god sanctions human slavery, beating of slaves, murdering neighbouring peoples (sometimes including children and livestock), dictates rape victims should be put to death if they didn't scream (because clearly that means they wanted it and are committing adultery) etc etc. If we did this and claimed this true god was perfectly moral, we all know the reaction we'd get. The person hearing this would recognise it as woefully immoral and would point out how ridiculous it is to claim any of this could come from a perfectly moral god. At least, that's what they'd do right up until the point they recognised we were tricking them and were really pointing out things from the bible. That's the point where the equivocation would kick in and the excuses would start flowing.
A lot of people feel that admitting not knowing something is a "weakness" of some type. Same as admitting one is wrong. The Ego takes a hit and some folks can't take that queasy feeling that they've been bullshitting their way through life and need to rethink everything. So they stamp on whatever answer feels right to them and keep on trucking.
Fear, ontological insecurity, perceived loss of status, threat over-detection and avoidance, submission to authority, binary decision-making... all thanks to an almond-shaped little nubule in the limbic region of the brain.... the right amygdala.
The main reason to my mind is that 'I don't know' can only work in reason, it is unlivable. You always have to act one way or another, because decisions time out, while debates can last forever.
In the analogy about learning to trust someone, for an actual person, at least you can reasonably establish that the person in question ACTUALLY EXISTS!! 🤦♂️
classic Barron, only he truly understands “faith”, and you do not; everyone who disagrees with him uses the term incorrectly; when he gets on the subject of the ineffable, beyond spacetime god it even gets worse; with Barron, every criticism is met with an accusation of ignorance.
Matt M your reply is based on assuming anyone who disagrees with Barron doesn’t have the qualifications to do so. As if having an opinion about faith is something one has to be qualified for. If that were true, no one would be qualified.
thank you mr Mayuiers, an introductory course to the philosophy of religion will expose one to a number of the authors listed, so im not sure that your claim of an ignorant modern world is valid
"The modern world hasn’t been exposed to the authors..." the modern world is well aware of said authors; the criticism here is to the relevance; it is ironic that in the first 3 centuries of the church there was a stated opposition to gnosticism; you and mr Barron seem to to be pining for a renaissance of esotericism;
thank you for the clarification, mr Mayuiers; Mr Barron began the vid with an analogy of accepting a testimony of a person on nothing more than on its face value; the act of faith that the person is telling the truth is an act of charity; you are giving the person the benefit of the doubt that they are telling the truth precisely because you lack full knowledge; at the end of the vid, mr Barron defines his terms, “faith is a response to a revealing god” the problem with this definition is that you have to assume that what is being revealed is a being beyond spacetime; when you combine mr Barron’s analogy with his definition, this reveals the problem; because not only do you lack full knowledge of what is being said, you also lack knowledge of the existence of the person who is saying it; mr Barron pretends this is reasonable and is equitable with any reasonable claim; if I say “my family loves me” you can watch me interact with my family to observe if it is true; if i tell you “god loves me” you can only observe me, and assume an interaction and never know weather it is true or not; reasonably, they are not the same thing; mr Barron would pretend that they are
What drives me crazy is the use of metaphor and symbolism. "God speaks to us, but not in a voice coming from the clouds sort of thing." Well if it isn't a voice from the clouds, what is it exactly? Is it a voice in your head? Does he send you an email? What the hell is it *Exactly*?
@@rohan7224 I did neither express nor imply any such thing. The bible says the bible is the inerrant word of god, a nearly perfect ring of circular reasoning. There is no need to have any purpose or genre.
@@rohan7224 I find it odd that we need to have "the church" in order to properly translate the objectively good, inerrant word of god. Even funnier how pretty much every religion translated to differently. It's almost as if the entire thing is subjective and no one really knows what the "real" translation or meaning is.
It seems a little obtuse to me to attack religion for being too metaphorical. It rather seems to me that religion becomes nonsense only when taken too literally. I am an agnostic atheist, but religion makes almost perfect sense to me as a metaphor. I think I can honestly understand the experience of being "spoken to by God" when percieving the beauty of the laws governing the universe, in the homecoming embrace of Nature, through the sublime rapture of the stars, in the intensity of aesthetic bliss, through the humbling magnificence of love - in short, whenever I find myself oceanically immersed in moments of self-transcendence or existential confrontation with the naked mystery of existence. No doubt I attach quite a different metaphysics to these kinds of experiences from most religious people, but I think we tend to share our experiences in common even if we apply different conceptual schemes to them. Certain experiences are so exalted, or approach ineffability in their mysteriousness, that any attempt to describe them literally will usually itself be nonsense. At the very least, reverential metaphor can sometimes be entirely appropriate.
Such equivocation! The good Bishop clumsily states, "Faith ... it's a surrender at the far side of reason ..." @ 1:47. Yes, it's a stretch of what is reasonable.
It's incredible how many words some people can use to say nothing. I like how Alex is able to keep track of the inane babble and dissect it. When pressed to actually give a definition of faith he says "faith is the response to a revealing god" which is just more words which say nothing. Who elected this guy to decide that the person in the Bill Maher reference was wrong about what faith is anyway? At least that person was honest.
I would have thought that faith isn't usually based upon no evidence but a lack of sufficient evidence to justify the conclusion. Still illogical, but not quite as bad.
@@ROFT it does depend on what one considers evidence. Apparently our standards of evidence are too stringent for theists, as it would keep them from what they want to do, which is believe in god.
@@ROFT It really doesn't depend on how you define evidence. That would be the case if he were talking about philosophical arguments, which just as logical fallacies and mathematical proofs are considered a form of evidence by some, if not many people. He was however talking about faith and faith, together with your examples of a book or psychological reactions isn't considered evidence by any honest person.
The Bishop is speaking in tongues. If he had an actual definition for “faith”, he’d just clearly say that, but since he doesn’t, he just makes a bunch of noisy words sound like a definition.
Yea it's called moving the goal posts. It's refusing to be have a concrete definition in order to slip away when cornered on something. It doesn't lead you anywhere in a discussion just in to the weeds. Which is where religion gets you. It's the reason there is no 1 version of Christianity but rather 30,000 + denominations cos faith is an absolutely useless tool for discerning fiction from reality.
I think saying “faith is believing without seeing” is just skipping past the conversation here. Other than religion, where else do you settle for faith? That’s ultimately what atheists in general are saying is that we call BS on changing the “rules” for believing in something and giving religion an exemption from the rational, critical thinking path to belief.
@@BSwenson yea agreed but if I could just make an addendum to this and clarify that all atheists do not share the same views when it comes to critical thinking and scepticism, what I mean is some people aren't atheist for good reason, some people do not express scepticism and rational thinking but rather cynicism. All atheism means is "you do not accept the claim that some god or gods exists." There is no creed or doctrine to atheism. An example is I have a cousin who happens to be gay and calls himself an atheist. He doesn't accept the god of the bible because in his words " the bible doesnt accept me so i don't accept the bible ." Yet this same person is superstitious and believes in ghosts and haunted hotels. He isn't an atheist for any good reason other than he's gay and the bible doesn't "support" homosexuality. Yet has no problem lumping himself in the category of atheist.
The Bishop's initial definition of 'faith' was actually the definition of 'trust'. He failed to explain how you can trust in something that has no evidence to back it up.
Also importantly, trust is a very relative thing. You may trust your friend if he says he needs to borrow $1000 to fix his car. But would you trust him if he said the gun he just handed to your 2yo daughter is unloaded?
He doesn't address that there are levels of credulity. If your trusted friend says (without evidence) that he's never tasted coffee, you might be inclined to believe him as that statement doesn't particularly push the bounds of credulity. If, on the other hand, he claims that he has the power of teleportation, that would be something you'd be less likely to accept.
Bishop Barron's explanation of faith has been the best I've heard yet. The crux of philosophy being less encompassing of the universe than theology is right. There is the analogy between dreams and reality. One comes to know the difference because a dream can only be recalled in reality, that is reality is greater in scope than a dream that is, in fact, very narrow. So to, philosophy is relative narrow and scientific to the all encompassing universe of God.
"Faith is the response to the revealing God". Two problems, real quick: ● That's really unhelpful, because now we don't even agree that faith exists. People of (true) faith can never be wrong, correct? By definition. ● This definition clearly goes against what pretty much everyone means by "faith", including himself two minutes before, when he spoke about faith in what some guy tells him.
How analogy is fallacious. "Things, hunches, intuition, experience, and knowledge" are all a reason to believe and trust a friend (except maybe intuition) without blindly being gullible and following a fake friend who doesn't love you. So it fails to fit into the faith category, is he trying to redefine faith?
that's classic new-age christianity. being poetic and vague to make simple things sound more smart and attractive. I encourage everyone to listen to the full discussion Alex brilliantly brings up all the holes in Barron's logic. Alex is really doing god's work!
One thing left out of this clip: Belief isn't so much of a polar state. It's gradual. If someone tells me he has a dog, fine. I'll "believe" it. No problem. But would I bet my life that he has told me the truth? No, I wouldn't. It just seems REASONABLY more likely that he's telling me the truth about his dog. And that's the extent of my "belief". It's ALWAYS based on reason. And if you show me that any of my beliefs is actually based on faith, guess what: I'll stop believing it. The only thing that MAYBE could fit SOME definition of "faith" is my acceptance that there's an actual world that I perceived through my senses. But that's just a very reasonable working assumption.
@@scambammer6102 It is a reasonable working assumption that my experiences of an external world corresponds to an external world. I can never demonstrate it's true. I have to assume it. That's the bare minimum that I have to accept without demonstration. I wouldn't call it"faith", because it's pretty reasonable.
Do you struggle with the English language or did you get high on chromosomes before posting this? "Response" clearly indicates an action or event which follows a preceding action or event. If faith is a response to revelation than the revelation obviously comes first.
@@david-pb4bi That does not follow. No religious person has a good reason to believe in their religion, they have to rely on faith cause there is no proof for any god that does not mean that all or any of them are atheists and afraid to admit it.
Too many "religious experts" assume that Alex, being so young, couldn't possibly defend his beliefs. He comes off as a lot more honest in this exchange. The Bishop is tossin' a word salad without even including croutons.
I hate it so much when religious people are cornered and they start bending the meaning of words and redefining what words mean to get out of the situation!
@@mayyas8924 I dont think he is bending words but rather he just has a different definition already. He may be incorrect but its not as though he has realised he is wrong and is lookng for another way to win the argument, he just does not believe himself to be wrong
What beliefs is Alex defending? Just because you don't understand someone's lexicon does not mean the person is not honest or speaking the truth. The bishop is a professor, lectured for almost two decades before becoming a bishop. Alex is a student. If for anything, the bishop is toning down on his lexicon to help Alex to understand. You can find videos of Bishop Barron's high class lectures which he gives once every year. You just don't know philosophy or theology.
To be fair here: The Bishop doesn't claim anything. He is asked what faith is to him and then he tries to convey his personal experience of faith with words hopefully understandable to others. I personally do not say that I would understand or buy this attempted explanation but he is definitely not making up word salad to propose or attack or defend something. He was asked a question. Have a great day!
The religious will forever avoid coherently and unambiguously defining terms, for fear that application of logic or reasoning will just totally destroy their comforting delusions.
Delusion lol you don't have a better exsplantion the best most scientists can come up with is infinite everything so we were the inevitable cause but clearly nothing like God because they can't admit they are wrong
@@BeneathWalls there's nothing ignorant I've been an atheist most of my life just over a year as a Christian i would never deny science why would I but to me it's clear God exists but the point is you don't know you have no exsplantion for the universe clearly if we could make it we would like computer game's we are also trying to make conscious beings in al robot's and computer simulations so usless you believe in all of everything we are the most advanced life then you can't rule out that something could and would make what we call the universe. If you use infinite number of universes or other beliefs NOT science to disprove God it's you that's ignorant
@@davidevans3223 The universe and computers sharing the trait of complexity doesn't mean they share the trait of being created. That would be a false equivalence.
The bishop seems to think that belief is a choice. We don't decide what we believe and what we don't believe. We are either convinced that a claim is true or we are not convinced or we are convinced that the claim is not tue. We can choose or decide to accept a claim but that does not necessarily lead to belief.
@@macmac1022 It's wrong. belief is based on information same as knowledge. Change the info, change the belief. By your definition beliefs would never change.
@@scambammer6102 " It's wrong. belief is based on information same as knowledge. Change the info, change the belief. By your definition beliefs would never change." Ummmm, you are proving us right. You are showing how its not choice but being convinced by information. In light of new information might change your beliefs if that new information falsifies what you belief before was. Just for an example, I cannot just chose to believe in a flat earth, right now I am convinced its a sphere by information so I cannot undo that information to just chose and change my belief, it will take new information to falsify that the world is spherical and point towards a flat earth enough to convince me for it to become a belief of mine. Can you show me an example of someone just choosing a different belief without any new information being added?
art is probably a better analogy for atheists because when you read something good or watch a good movie, you know you are in contact with the good. it's out of you it's revealing itself and you venerate it essentially. But you still have to open yourself for it.
@@nathanluz1218 "art is probably a better analogy for atheists because when you read something good or watch a good movie, you know you are in contact with the good. it's out of you it's revealing itself and you venerate it essentially. But you still have to open yourself for it." But art is subjective. When I look at some of those paintings that are abstract, I see a child finger painting wildly with no rhyme or reason, to me, they look like crap.
Wtf was that at the end?! Why would someone need faith to believe in a god who's already revealed himself? Wouldn't its existence just be the case? God damn circle talk
Love the clip, Alex. If anyone is reading this comment prior to watching the video, get your popcorn ready. Bishop Barron: "Faith is the most misunderstood word in the religious lexicon, b/c it is construed just that way. Faith means some wild credulity, some crazy superstition. Believing any ole nonsense on the basis of nothing. That is not what faith is." (10 min later) Alex: "It would be helpful to the listener, and to me, if we could have a sentence, perhaps, that sums up what faith is, as a dictionary definition." Bishop Barron: "I believe it is the response to the revealing of God. The response of the whole self in the presence of the whole God who reveals himself." Bishop Barron should go back to the Bible, not Thomas Aquinas. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1
@@wolfdwarf The Bible is a collection of Books the were chosen by the Catholic Church so the Catholic interpretation of God is the only faith on which one can base his beliefs for it is guided by the Spirit. The writing of the Saints are therefore just as holy as the writings in the Bible.
@@hugosylvestre6970 I'd like to see, for comparison, just how guided that church and process was, however, during the days of Torquemada? And Gregory XIII, say? If you could, to some degree, reveal that to me. Or at least, your opinion, thereof. Fortunately, no schism or war is likely, if not all agree, in this chat. And that this church, in your own words, chose the books, implies the Spirit must have been very active, indeed. Was the Spirit equally so active, then, in Torquemada's time? This may or may not need proper clarification.
I'm an ex-Catholic and the Bishop's tendency to explain everything with stories, analogies and poetic language is extremely common in Catholic priests. Here, is speaking the same way he most likely speaks to his congregation or when believers come to him for spiritual guidance while Alex is trying to be rigorous. I've noticed it with other youtubers who are priests, they use their fatherly tone and condescending attitude that they find are effective when talking to believers of their church and then they wonder why atheists don't react positively to it.
Hi Giulia Lana. I was raised Protestant, still am, and find many protestant pasters to be more like Alex explaining, though frequently using short stories to illistrate their points. Anyway the bishop is a clergyman who is trained to communicate largely through stories (which is how most of us usually think). If you want to see Alex, who I think is training in philosophy and speaks in that manner, communicate with a Christian philosopher then there is a debate between him and William Lane Craig on youtube. I think you will find both of them use very strick language. I wish you well
That bit made me chuckle. This priest is just a wordsmith who happened to find religion... he could as easily be selling cars or houses or a political ideology. He just needs to be heard.
@Grutas Brolen I’m well aware of this. I grew up Catholic and we always looked at ourselves as intellectually superior to all other Christians. Those men you mentioned were certainly ambitious in their learning and spent a lot of time thinking and philosophizing. But ultimately most of their thoughts were just speculation and in many respects they thought things that even the Church today would see as abhorrent, such as Aquinas’s views on the death penalty. Aquinas himself threw away many of Plato and Aristotle’s beliefs. I could be mistaken but I believe Aristotle himself actually supported infanticide in many cases. Most of their philosophy is just speculation that later thinkers added their own speculation on top of over thousands of years. But regardless of everything I’ve said in this reply, you still didn’t answer my original question.
I like the person tells you they have a dog/dragon arguement as used by Matt dillahunty & co. And btw listening to an intelligent clergyman spouting nonsense hurts my brain.
So agree. This is obviously an kind thoughtful and intelligent man, and to hear the things he is saying hurts my brain and also my heart. Such a waste. That’s what kills me the most. The billions of lives wasted choosing to either believe or pretend to believe so as not to cause friction among friends and family.
Presumably, following the impenetrable nonsense of "faith is the response to the revealing god", Alex paused for 2 seconds then either laughed out loud or said "I rest my case". Barron came close to saying that there was content in his divine interactions but he probably knew he might be asked about that so smartly turned off that road.
Barron and so many other apologists for superstition are forever moving the goal posts. When challenged about "reason," they argue that "faith" is "reasonable." And yet when "faith" is shown to be absurd (example: crackers can become bodies after a few Latin words), they argue that "faith" does not require reason at all because one must just "believe" the superstition (narrative, poetry, whatever).
The bishop’s final statement is actually perfect. A loving god WOULD therefor reveal himself unambiguously to all people. And since he hasn’t revealed himself to me at least, I can reasonably conclude he’s either not loving, or nonexistent.
Christ dying on the cross and rising again on the third day is the revealing sequence of actions. To demand from God a personal revelation seems to test God, and if He responds to your challenge, does that not make him less perfect and therefore not deserving of being called God?
@@hughcairney8623 why should I not have the same standard of evidence as Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Gideon, Samuel, David, Elijah, Isaiah, Paul, Peter, John, Barnabas, Simeon, Lucius, Manaen, or Saul? “God” seems to be more than willing and able to reveal himself personally to any number of believers, doubters, and unbelievers alike, but I ask for evidence and that’s suddenly not allowed? Ask, and you shall be answered. But only if it supports the fairytale.
@@basildraws I definitely see what you are saying, but I cannot help but hear a sense of jealousy in your answer (please do not take offense, I see it as reasoned jealousy but jealousy nonetheless). Why should you or I or anyone have the same standard of evidence as those people? Are we saying that all people are absolutely equal? "Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required" (Lk 12:48). Just as we are born into different circumstances to different parents, God may reveal himself differently to you or to me, what matters is what we do with this revelation. To me, we need faith in addition to reason, because as God is infinitely distant from us in perfection, our reason alone cannot possibly encapsulate God, so we add this idea of faith because it allows us to bridge the gap that is between us as creatures to the Creator. Further, it is for this reason that faith is considered a virtue by Christians, for if everything was knowable by reason, of what purpose is faith? Getting back to your point about the revelation to biblical figures, perhaps God out of his infinite wisdom deemed that revealing himself in this way to the biblical figures was necessary and proper because it would allow for Him to establish Himself in the world. I definitely do not think that the revelation of these figures is in any way complete, at best they only show a certain aspect of the idea of God, for as soon as we claim to know exactly what God is, he is by definition limited and in that way imperfect which is not befitting of God. I feel like this is a bit long winded, but I hope that I presented my thoughts clearly, anyways thanks for the conversation you have really made me think! :) Also with regards to my previous comment, I think I am incorrect in saying that he will not respond to you (as you pointed out "Ask, and it will be given you"). I meant only to say that demanding with the intention to change God's will is a fallacious task, I think that God is our final end, so if we ask of God how we may become aligned with him as our final end, we will definitely receive guidance.
@@hughcairney8623 I’m glad I’ve made you think, but you should really think some more. You’re just making one fallacious argument after another. 1. Jealous. No, I’m not jealous of fictional characters from a book. I listed those names to demonstrate that god, doesn’t have a problem breaking ‘free will’, or ‘a test of faith’ since he freely reveals himself whenever he chooses. He would know what evidence I need to believe in him, and if he truly wished that I reside with him for eternity, then would be capable and willing to provide that evidence; to reveal himself to me. Of course, this is all in the hypothetical since I don’t believe he exists in the slightest. 2. Faith. Your argument about the necessity of faith is circular. “We need faith, because if we didn’t need it, we wouldn’t need it.” Yup, that’s just about as circular as it gets. Faith is not a reliable path to truth. If person A believes a proposition on faith, and person B believes the opposite on faith, how can we know who is right? If faith can lead us just as easily to two opposing beliefs, then faith can’t be trusted as a path to truth. Faith is nothing more than cultural wishful thinking. You grow up believing what your local culture has conditioned you to believe. You don’t spontaneously develop faith in a religion you’ve never heard of before. 3. Perfection. All you’re doing here is providing a post hoc definition of a god that fits your narrative. He doesn’t reveal himself because he’s the kind of god that doesn’t reveal himself, because… reasons. And more to the point, the reasons are silly. I know tornadoes exist. I don’t understand how they work, but some special scientists do. Knowing about them doesn’t diminish what they are, nor cause them to cease to exist. Not knowing what they are similarly doesn’t have any effect on their existence nor their ability to wreak havoc. We may never fully understand how the universe works, so what? We can still study the physical world and learn from it. God’s hiddenness is not a virtue, it is an excuse. All of this is not an attack on you, just on the ideas and their validity. I still see no evidence of god, and I try not to give credence to ideas for which there is no evidence.
A lot of word salad from someone living in a “faith” bubble. He thinks he is being rational and gaining ground by conceding that call God doesn’t alk to you with a booming voice from the sky“ as some imagine. It’s just as bad if you are hearing voices that nobody else can hear, Priest.
Artificial intelligence explains this process very well. It's simply called 'confidence'. Confidence is based on a web of existing information and analysis which determines choices. Not all choices map directly to the confidence of a specific claim, but all decisions are still based on reasons that have a final confidence value based on the available information and analysis of that information. Emotions could be a part of the choice along with a reason or confidence value. No faith is needed.
Exactly. And religious confidence is unreasonable because the reasoning is flawed and subjective. Even the most reasonable theistic arguments depend on unfalsifiable statements and controversial logic.
If faith is a "response to the revealing god", but people use faith to believe in different "revealing gods" - as well as what precisely these gods are "revealing" (the ideas of which may conflict with each other), then why/how is faith a reliable way to get at what truth is? If it isn't reliable in this regard, why use it? If it is reliable, why doesn't everyone who uses it come to the same conclusion?
Alex, after watching the full discussion between you and Bishop Barron, I thought that this discussion about "faith" was the highlight of the discussion. I left a comment about this on the full video. Barron is highly intelligent and well educated. His eloquence and erudition is obviously convincing to many in the Catholic Church. However, underneath the eloquence of his rhetoric is a simple minded belief system with no evidentiary basis. This focus on the meaning of "faith" clearly demonstrated this impression. Again, many would find his longwinded explanation convincing. Kudos to you for seeing right through his attempt to redefine "faith" as reason. It also makes me wonder when does defending one's religious beliefs with innocence and enthusiasm cross the line into obfuscation?
This week on "Babbling Incoherently About My Imaginary Friend" Faith is what people rely on when there isn't evidence for what they want to believe. Having faith, in that sense, is by definition harmful to rational thought
Faith is required for rational thought. Everyday u have faith in your own freedom of will and act upon it, this can be applied to the idea of a god aswell
@@TheFelimonFaith is the nonsense excuse assholes give for doing whatever they want and blaming their imaginary friend to avoid responsibility. Grow up, Santa isn't real either
@@KeatrithAmakiir you use faith everyday. u have faith that you will wake up the next day, u have faith that your friends wont steal from your house when u invite them to ur home. u use subjective belief everyday in ur life as objectivity is very hard to find. i am an athiest but to say that faith is nonsense is nonsense itself. faith is a core concept of life
The most interesting part was how calm delivery and seeming earnest intent could mask the absence of any real argument for the proposal, but you kept listening as there appeared to be a promise of something. After listening I realised if asked to repeat his rational I would at a loss to list anything, absolute white noise waffle, and his job is to speak and persuade.
It's really a perfect portrait of a priest: a man who postures as the keeper of higher, spiritual knowledge when really he just speaks with earnest confidence and sprinkles some Latin in here and there
Bishop Barron’s answer seems crystal clear to me. When assessing whether you are going to believe something you have just heard from someone (i.e.- “I have a headache.”), you’re going to use reason as far as possible to get as close to knowing the truth of their statement as possible (Are headaches real? Do they look pained? Have I ever caught this person in a lie? Etc.). But at some point, no assessment of the observable facts and no amount of reason is going to definitively prove that what this person is saying is true, and at the moment you decide to believe them, you’ve just performed an act of faith. Neither reason nor evidence were able to prove anything (one way or another), but they both ushered you toward your final conclusion and that final leap where you chose to believe something despite being unable to use reason or evidence to confirm it. It’s an act of faith. Similarly, people can have faith in God, whether through believing the word of others who, through reason and evidence, have been determined to be trustworthy, or through direct experience that is beyond anything reason and evidence can prove. This makes perfect sense to me.
Faith is a response to a revealing God meaning: Through reason, we can have faith that a claim that is unable to be ascertained is true based upon the congruencey and truth found in what can be ascertained at it's baseline. I hope that is worded clearly. Based upon what can be 100% substantiated, what is then not able to be confirmed with certainty can be entertained through faith based upon the congruencey of what is able to be ascertained at the root of the claim.
He also added an aspect of believing what someone says about themselves in order to better understand their perspective. That sounds more like a hypothetical exercise, I do it by simply imagining what someone says they believe. If someone seems honest I can take their word about what their beliefs are, as now I have a form of evidence supporting that they really believe it. But this doesn't involve believing anything about the world outside their heads.
Religion is a confidence trickster. I think that's what Bishop Barton is trying to say. The more invested you get, the less you question things that you otherwise would know to be false. I love it when religious figureheads speak the quiet parts out loud.
People are expecting a cut and dry 1 sentence answer to somethings that cannot be understood in a single sentence. What can be reasoned cannot always be ascertained. Faith is a response to a revealing God meaning: Through reason, we can have faith that a claim that is unable to be ascertained is true based upon the congruencey and truth found in what can be ascertained at it's baseline. I hope that is worded clearly. Based upon what can be 100% substantiated, what is then not able to be confirmed with certainty can be entertained through faith based upon the congruencey of what is able to be ascertained at the root of the claim.
"“Faith is a response to the revealing God.” What in the world does that mean?" A few hours parsing Jordan Peterson and you may be an expert at figuring it out (or, alternatively, you could end up banging your head against a wall and repeatedly saying, "WTF kind of WORD SALAD IS THAT?").
It's a really stupid way of saying God DOES reveal himself, a little bit or enough, and after said revelation, we respond with faith, faith meaning we trust everything else he says there after.
Did you have an engineer assess if the ground you live on sits on top of a sinkhole prior to moving in or did you have faith that the ground was sturdy? Did you foresee your future prior to leaving your home today to make sure you would have no accidents and return home safely? .. the point is, we all exercise “faith” with no evidence.
It was very nice to see him being called out on his vague usage of words. When the flaw is pointed out and he was pushed to elucidate his position, he fell completely flat
@@Catholictomherbert In a casual conversation, I have absolutely no issue with use of vague language, and I can understand what people are saying. In a conversation like this however, it is a lot more important to be precise in your phrasing because the other party can often have a slightly different understanding of the terms, which can have significant consequences
Bishop is not doing that.. Faith is a response to a revealing God meaning: Through reason, we can have faith that a claim that is unable to be ascertained is true based upon the congruencey and truth found in what can be ascertained at it's baseline. I hope that is worded clearly. Based upon what can be 100% substantiated, what is then not able to be confirmed with certainty can be entertained through faith based upon the congruencey of what is able to be ascertained at the root of the claim.
That's the most frequent if not the only strategy religious people can come up with: trying to change the standard definition of faith so they look less unreasonable.
Here is the difference: I can have good reasons to believe a persons testimony, yet not believe it. But I can’t have faith in a persons testimony and not assent to it. That would be a paradox. If I have faith in a person, I not only can have a good reason to believe them, but I also do in fact BELIEVE them.
Do you have faith that when you go to sleep you will wake up again? You trust that you will awaken again but there is no guarantee that you will. Do you trust that when you breathe air will keep you alive but there is no guarantee that it will? You just breathe on faith without giving it any thought and know it will keep you alive to the point where there is no effort involved.
I wish they had asked the Bishop, "Is faith reliable?", "Does it always result in believing the same thing?", "Can two people validly cite faith as the reason for believing in two contradictory ideas?", "How does a person determine which ideas can validly be held to be true based solely on faith and which require evidence?".
Except in a most abstract sense, faith does not always -- or perhaps even ever -- lead any two human beings to precisely the same result. But, on the other hand, faith can indeed result in paradox, which is precisely what one means when one refers to two diametrically opposed things which both appear to be true at the same time. Purely from the standpoint of history, this is shown in the contrast between, for example, Newtonian physics and quantum mechanics. If one relies upon nothing more than Aristotelean analysis, then quantum mechanics cannot be true, because it rejects some of the key concepts of the earlier physics -- which Newton and his followers believed was universally true. But now we know that, at the atomic and subatomic levels, particles (or waves, take your pick) react quite differently than the larger planetary cosmos in which we all live. Your last question is unanswerable except to the degree that one believes wholly in science and also wholly rejects the supernatural. Science relies wholly upon rational experiment. Faith is what happens only when and if one is capable of positing something beyond science. And what, exactly, is "beyond science?" It is perhaps just everything that science cannot yet tell us -- and that's a great deal indeed.
@@thomasthompson6378 You state . . . "And what, exactly, is "beyond science?" It is perhaps just everything that science cannot yet tell us -- and that's a great deal indeed." If it's "just everything that science cannot YET tell us" then the statement is meaningless. Science is the study of everything in the natural world, and since there is absolutely no evidence that there is anything that is NOT in the natural world, it is indeed the study of EVERYTHING. You make the statement that "faith does not always -- or perhaps even ever -- lead any two human beings to precisely the same result". I agree wholeheartedly with that. But then you go on to state that " on the other hand, faith can indeed result in paradox". Yep. Faith results in different results AND results in paradox. Which means that it is totally UNRELIABLE as a means of establishing truth. Faith is useless. The beauty of science is that it recognizes our understanding of the universe GETS BETTER over time. Not so with faith. Faith says "I take this assertion as true solely on the basis that I take it as true without evidence", which is basically to assert that there IS NO BASIS for taking it as true. And if my last question is unanswerable, the one asking how one determines what can and cannot be validly accepted as true "based on faith", then it precisely means that faith is a USELESS concept as the basis for believing ANYTHING.
@@thomasthompson6378 Newtonian physics and quantum mechanics do indeed contradict each other. Now we know that the former is wrong. When you say "this [the fact that faith can result in paradox] is shown in the contrast between [...] Newtonian physics and quantum mechanics", do you mean that both those models of reality required faith for being accepted as true?
Some feel the truth in their guts. Others say "I just feel it in my heart". Why do random feelings in random body parts outweigh thoughts in the mind (or the brain)?
@@AlDunbar good my boy? Can you make a distinction between what is called thinking, what your desires are and what the Chinese call “make your heart like a lake filled with kindness”? :)
@ around 3:50 he talks about accepting my statements WITHOUT EVIDENCE. And sure, if I tell you I went to high school, you should probably accept that ‘on faith’. But if I tell you I GRADUATED from high school, you might need some evidence, particularly if you were hiring me for a job. If I went on to tell you I went to med school, you might accept that. I never said I was ENROLLED in med school…. And of course if you needed heart surgery you would SURELY want to know that I graduated, that I’m licensed, that I have an acceptable record, etc. So yeah, you and I could accept a LOT of things without great evidence, or on someone’s word, or because we read it in a book, as long as those things don’t have a great impact on our lives. As long as they don’t matter much if they turn out to be false. But IMPORTANT things, like surgery, or a WORLD VIEW, things that matter the most, THOSE THINGS REQUIRE EVIDENCE. Faith is not enough.
The minimum effort needed to expose madness is to let the person just speak their mind. The safer and more comfortable they feel the more they will tell. And I think we have heard enough here.
Why do you need faith, if god has revealed himself to you? Faith is only required for a non-revealing god. I wouldn't need faith to believe in aliens if an alien kidnapped me and stuck a probe up my ass.
@@jmg94j The idea is that God reveals himself in mysterious ways. We must seek him out and correctly interpret the evidence he left behind then decide whether or not to believe He exists. It’s a pretty terrible concept full of holes, but that is what the priest is getting at. I’m still waiting for the priest to explain what component there is of faith that isn’t part of reason. Everything he said sounds like reason to me.
@@JohnSmith-fz1ih "God reveals himself in mysterious ways. We must seek him out and correctly interpret the evidence he left behind." In other words, god doesn't reveal himself. He only leaves behind the flimsiest of evidence that can be easily confused with natural occurrences, or any other god for that matter. We also must have a deep, pathological need to find the evidence for god, before we can find the evidence for god. I would consider his arguments one giant hole, rather than full of holes.
@@jmg94j I agree, which is why I’m an atheist. To my mind it’s not that the theistic view is illogical. It’s just that there’s no good evidence for it, and what people think is evidence is subjective personification of the environment which as you say can be evidence foe any god one wishes to make up.
Faith is belief without evidence, trust is earned. God hasn't earned a SPECK of trust. Where was he during the Holocaust? Where is he now during the COVID pandemic? The only thing "omni" about God is his omni-*_ABSENCE!_*
"Surrender at the far side of reason" is the bishops first definition of faith. Why would a bishop need to resort to this greasy word salad? If you cannot dazzle them with brilliance baffle them with bs.
@godof79 I studied for a master's in philosophy (UK terminology). The problem here that everything is a lot more complex than a few throwaway quotes might suggest. I'm pretty sure that Alex would agree.
@@plukethep Knowledge is irrelevant in the face of hard solipsism. What matters is belief. Of that, people are either convinced or not. I see NO REASON to be convinced of any god, MOST OF ALL the Christian god, who is one of the rare gods readily DISPROVEN by being a contradiction obvious to anyone reading the bible.
@@brianmi40 I'm not sure who is presenting a solipsism here. Understanding what we mean by knowledge and belief are hugely important. Language and the understanding of it are essential in any argument we present. There are many 'reasons' to believe in God, i.e. the arguments for the existence of God. You might not think they are persuasive, but others do. The same for arguments for Christianity. These people aren't necessarily mad or wrong, anymore than you are, if their priors hold. Understanding their positions and their use of language is the starting point to any reasonable discussion.
You both bring up interesting points. When picking a TH-cam clip title, often times the producer exaggerates the content or aggravates the audience in an attempt to elicit more clicks. They deliberately antagonize in hopes of gaining more revenue. It's how the entire media industry works these days. However, when one is in direct conversation, kindness and compassion (honey) can help achieve meaningful connection, trust, openness, and sharing, as opposed to antagonism, accusations or conflict (flies). The medium is the message. :)
I feel it all comes down to "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. " When my daughter tells me she had pizza for lunch, and: I know she likes pizza, I know and pizza was on the menu, then I have all the reasons to believe what she said was true without seeing her actually eating the pizza. But if she would say she had white unicorn meat with ferry dust and sparkles, I would have my doubts (I would most likely think it is something from a kid's menu).
Faith is a response to the revealing spagetti monster. I mean...really? When no simple definition exists for your concept (faith) you just have to use nebulous, poetic sounding language; lots of "telling what's in one's heart" and the like. The charisma of this preacher is going to reel back in a lot of people suffering a "crisis of faith".
Two things pop in to my mind here. The first concerns the scenario of a friend or associate telling you something and you either believing them or not. Our language even uses the phase, 'is it reasonable to believe them? The second point concerns the Bishop Barron and another phase from our lexicon, 'if you can't explain something so that your audience can understand you then you don't properly understand what it is you are trying to explain'.
His analogy doesn't hold - he says that we already have a relationship with this person we're talking to , so we believe what they say. But which thing is God here? If God is the interlocutor, then we must already have proof of his existence so the argument in irrelevant. If God's existence is the fact communicated by the interlocutor, either the interlocutor is the universe (in which case there must be evidence for God somewhere in the world) or scripture (which we have little reason to trust). Is my reasoning correct?
I love when people say faith isn’t believing without evidence just to explain in a very round about way that faith is believing in something without evidence.
He didn't. He made it more akin to an "educated guess". An educated guess is based on evidence. It's just not conclusive in the way a repeated peer review study is. That's faith
Bishop Barron: 'God has created this world our of love'. A creator who created a world where one animal or creature has to kill and eat another in order to sustain itself could not be a loving god. And don't tell me it's all because of Adam and Eve eating the damned fruit.
Funny that the Bishops final summary of what faith is, is rather different as to how it is defined in the bible. Which would be that it is "belief in things unseen" (from the book of Corinthians I think). I suspect he has just tried to massively tailor his definition for his arguments sake.
Wrong. Bishop is not doing that.. Faith is a response to a revealing God meaning: Through reason, we can have faith that a claim that is unable to be ascertained is true based upon the congruencey and truth found in what can be ascertained at it's baseline. I hope that is worded clearly. Based upon what can be 100% substantiated, what is then not able to be confirmed with certainty can be entertained through faith based upon the congruencey of what is able to be ascertained at the root of the claim.
Coincidentally, I had a conversation the other day with someone who was offering the bishop's argument. He defined faith as something we have for a person. He thought that I might have had faith in a childhood friend who could help me with my homework. Predictably, he didn't understand why my prior knowledge of my hypothetical friend's good grades, fine work ethic, and excellent results in class would give me evidence to base a reasonable expectation that my friend could help me. Also predictably, this was hit attempt to sneak in faith in his imaginary friend named Jesus of whom we have little evidence at all.
Bishop is not doing that.. Faith is a response to a revealing God meaning: Through reason, we can have faith that a claim that is unable to be ascertained is true based upon the congruencey and truth found in what can be ascertained at it's baseline. I hope that is worded clearly. Based upon what can be 100% substantiated, what is then not able to be confirmed with certainty can be entertained through faith based upon the congruencey of what is able to be ascertained at the root of the claim.
Alex, the best explanation for the Bishop's thinking could be found in the lecture by Robert Sapolsky titled " The biological underpinnings of religiosity". I personally think it's an eyeopener. I think you will have second thoughts about debating a religious person in the future.
Sure, that initial definition of faith makes sense to me, and under the Bishop's definition, I could be said to have faith in people. However... When Jeff from Budgens tells me a story about what happened to him yesterday, and I have seen evidence that contradicts Jeff's narrative, I stop believing what Jeff tells me. When Jeff contradicts himself, I stop believing what Jeff tells me. When Jeff repeatedly manages to convince me that he is telling the truth despite these contradictions, constantly twisting his narrative, guilt-tripping me into believing him, and claiming the moral authority to control my every waking moment, I am being abused.
"What is your definition of faith?" "Faith is the response to a revealing God." That isn't even a definition, and it certainly isn't reasonable. The bishop, like many religious figures, doesn't like faith being characterized as unreasonable, but then has no good reason to justify it being seen as anything else.
Faith is to see what you believe, one who has faith for a day will have faith forever because it proves itself. Once you feel God, you will be utterly convinced of his existence. I used to be an atheist but you cannot escape the truth of Christ.
@@hugosylvestre6970 That could lead to any religion and they can't all be true. If you - like me - like evidence then as you accumulate data it becomes ever harder to believe. No version of the Christian God that I've heard proposed is even possible and I don't believe the impossible.
Sooo.....can the Bishop demonstrate his faith? Can he demonstrate the “revealing god” revealing itself in some measurably significant way? It’s okay Bishop, we’ll wait....
@@randominterestingvideos4733 You forgot to add some important information at the beginning of your assertion. Which is 'It is reported by people who were told it by people who were never there several decades and possibly centuries after the events happened that.......'
@@randominterestingvideos4733 I agree with you stage 12. Pretty much of the Bible is not true. Can you cite any independently verified 'fact' from the Bible? And which Bible? There have been so many versions.
From 3:06 to 3:20 the information just infers it’s a personal choice to believe following supply of information that may be false or true. Con men actually make living from exploiting this concept!
"Faith is a response to the revealing god"...what a nonsense statement. Why would one need Faith if someone or some god "revealed"/showed up and introduced themselves? I'm gonna go watch the whole convo, surely that bishop can do better? Always amazed when people say shit like that and think they've said something profound when they've just said something stupid. Keep up the good work CS....😉😉
I think a problem is believers get tangled up in this strange pull of defining faith that’s easily a euphemism or is synonymous to something like a belief without sufficient evidence or reason. It’s as if they’re trying to describe an activity they do, and we point out that they’re racing cars. They say, “Oh, no. Racing? I don’t race. I’m actually against racing. What we do is effectively and authentically try and see who can get to the other side the fastest.”
I listened to the Bishop's description of coming to know a person and have trust and confidence in that person. If you have trust and confidence in a person, believing what that person says can seem to be a rational act as opposed to being an act of faith. This is the standard recruitment strategy for every cult from the Hare Krishnas to the Scientologists. They invite the recruit to a dinner or meeting at which everything is friendly. The revelation of the theology doesn't come until after the recruit has become emotionally invested in the group.
What is rational cannot always be ascertained, so, Faith is a response to a revealing God meaning: Through reason, we can have faith that a claim that is unable to be ascertained is true based upon the congruencey and truth found in what can be ascertained at it's baseline. I hope that is worded clearly. Based upon what can be 100% substantiated, what is then not able to be confirmed with certainty can be entertained through faith based upon the congruencey of what is able to be ascertained at the root of the claim.
@@John.Christopher You can apply the same faith-based approach to arrive at any belief system. Hence, we have an estimated 4000 different religious denominations in the world.
@Jef van Becker ok, you convinced me Jesus and god are real. Now i will worship Satan because ypur god is responsible for the murder of at least 2 million people if you keep count from the bible. Your god is ok with slavery too, exodus 21. God also ordered babies be cut into pieces. Your god sends good decent people to hell. Your god is a mob boss, "worship me or i'll sent you to hell, but i love you though"
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The full discussion between CosmicSkeptic and Bishop Barron is available here: th-cam.com/video/aC9tKeJCJtM/w-d-xo.html | For an exclusive bonus clip of the two discussing the Trinity, sign up at www.thebigconversation.show!
"intuition" is an interesting subject. It isn't non-rational. It is based on observation, but it uses our cognitive biases to make logical jumps between seemingly disparate events. Often as not it's wrong, but when it hits it can seem amazing.
First book of moses has Vegan life style
!?
@@scambammer6102 same with voincidences and with prophesy that, coincidentally, turns out to have been true.
The bishop is a man with a crippled mind using faith as a crutch. We must be careful not to allow such charlatans to bastardize psychology and semantics in order to pimp the snake oil on which the intellect of so many is choked and stifled. The favorability and value afforded faith is the greatest misjudgment of humanity, and it would behoove us to remove religion from the head of the table and starve it of its protections and privileges.
@@MrLourie You sound triggered by the fact that you can't refute anything he's saying. Hence you resorted to childish nonsense. Unfortunately for you, and fortunately for humanity, religion is intrinsic to all humans. It can never be done away with. Here's the bishop speaking to you: th-cam.com/video/Xe5kVw9JsYI/w-d-xo.html
"Faith is a response to the revealing God"
So if God has not revealed himself to me, I cannot have faith. Only someone who God has revealed himself to can have faith.
If God reveals himself to me, why would I need faith?
😂👍 I like that
@Joseph Norm I recognize that being a discussion in theology class... Do we seek God or does god seek us.
What makes that some people who sincerely searched for god did not hear his calling, and some people appear to have heard him because their parents have?
Prick that god is, for sure. Not revealing himself to all of us...
My understanding is that in this generation at least we've all been "revealed" the same amount. Some have faith ie choose to believe, others don't. Personally I see good reasons both to believe and not to. I'm kind of on the fence which is why I watch videos like this one. I think one way to think about the Bible is like we do the Greek Myths. Not necessarily factual (and in some cases clearly not historically accurate) but bearer of deeper truths nonetheless. I have heard interpretations of the Old Testament myths (presented as such) that actually made a lot of ethical and symbolic sense. Literalism is for suckers and the God that would like you to suck up to him or else send you to hellfire is a sinister joke made up by religions. But I would not necessarily rule out something like "spirituality" to be a valuable endeavour. Some Greek philosophers made some pretty good cases for the existence of the soul btw..
@@mathieuL2204 The discriminating factor here is... Did god reveal himself to you?
(What would that look like to you anyway?
Do you, for example, think/believe that the Bible *IS* god revealing himself to you?
Why do some Christians claim that god has revealed himself to them in more personal ways than just through the bible)
"Faith is a response to the revealing God" ... If he revealed himself then there's no need for faith. If faith is your response, then that's an indication that you're not 100% sure.
His final definition seems to have a conclusion baked in.
Let me try:
“Faith is petting a real unicorn.”
"Faith - Complete trust or confidence in something or someone" - Cambridge Dictionary
In other words, it’s not evidence.
@@jackprather3471Why can't atheists define faith properly?
"A response to the revealing god" what does that even mean? Either you have evidence and you believe in reason or you dont have evidence and you believe on faith.
means he wants to sell you a bridge to nowhere
@@lucanus8997 but you can't trust in god any more than you can trust in your lucky toaster. there's no evidence to suggest otherwise.
Catholic bishops...BSing since 1st century c.e. 🤷♂️
@@lucanus8997 and what exactly has this imaginary character revealed?
@@lucanus8997 Trust should not be exercised without applying logic. If I have lent a friend money multiple times in the past and he has consistently paid me back then I will have trust (or even "faith", if you will) that he will do likewise next time I lend him money. If somebody I've just met asks to borrow money then I will be at least entertaining the possiblility that he may screw me over. The idea that a god exists is basically the second guy.
"Faith is the response of the revealing God". A God that you must belive exist based on faith. Wonderful, 11 minutes to reach a circular reasoning.
The whole debate was so frustrating 😩
Trust* you trust without having all of the evidence, being convicted of sin.
It’s very sad that it went over your head ☹️. You can disagree while still understanding the position of the person on the other side. The claim of the Christian is that God literally revealed himself through the scripture, through the church and in the form of Christ, many people have had religious experiences along with that. It is not circular when they see the world they see design, they read the Bible and are compelled by it, God reveals himself through Christ and they have faith. “ Faith is the response to the revealing God.”
Does the Bishop think that every other clergy person of every other religion doesn't have as much faith in their belief system as he does in his? That shows how ludicrous faith is. When he talks about believing or not believing what someone says because you know them it again just faith. Has he never heard of con artists? Con artists make a living by convincing people to trust them when they are lying.
Yes, as Matt Dillahunty often points out, faith is demonstrably not a reliable path to knowledge or truth, and this guy doesn't even seem to know what faith is. He seems embarrassed to admit that faith is exactly what it is described as in his own holy book.
"Does the Bishop think that every other clergy person of every other religion doesn't have as much faith in their belief system as he does in his? That shows how ludicrous faith is."
Does the astronomer think that every other astrologer doesn't have as much trust in their field as he does in his? That shows how ludicrous astronomy is.
"When he talks about believing or not believing what someone says because you know them it again just faith. Has he never heard of con artists?"
The simple fact that human nature is fallible should form the reasonable basis for some doubt when it comes to having faith (or trust) in a fellow human being. Con artists are humans, therefore they are fallible. On the other hand, some reasoned knowledge of God, including arguments that use logic to derive and establish God's nature such as immutability, simplicity, goodness, etc form the basis or context for trusting God and what he says.
@@Lerian_V All astronomers have more or less the same viewpoint, with some minor differences, and hold the same core beliefs, sustained by an overwhelming body of evidence. This is a very poor analogy.
We know humans exist. Therefore the faith we put in each one of them can be based on a relationship that we actually know exists, demonstrated by actions perpetrated by known agents. We don't know that God exists, and the faith we may put in him is faith only in his existence. This is an entirely different type of faith.
@@ptolemyauletesxii8642 All Catholic clergies have more or less the same viewpoint, with some minor differences, and hold the same core beliefs, sustained by an overwhelming body of evidence. My analogy is a very good one.
We know God exists. Therefore the faith we put in God can be based on a relationship that we actually know exists, demonstrated by actions perpetrated by known agents. We don't need faith to accept that God exists because we know that God exists. And you're correct that there are different types of faith: human/fallible faith and divine/infallible faith.
A truth is intelligible to us only in so far as it is evident to us, and evidence is of different kinds; hence, according to the varying character of the evidence, we shall have varying kinds of knowledge. For example, we accept the statement that the sun is 93 million miles distant from the earth because competent veracious authorities vouch for the fact. This kind of knowledge is termed faith, and is clearly necessary in daily life. If the authority upon which we base our assent is human and therefore fallible, we have human and fallible faith; if the authority is Divine, we have Divine and infallible faith.
@@Lerian_V 'Does the bishop think that every OTHER clergy person of every OTHER religion doesn't have as much faith in THEIR belief system as HE does in HIS?'
Your reading comprehension is at fault. The OP isn't talking about minor differences between one Catholic theologian and another. He's talking about the vast and irreconcilable differences between the claims of different religions, many of which directly contradict those of other religions, and almost none of which correspond to reality. This is NOTHING like astronomy, which is a relatively unified field of scientific inquiry, using data and observations to create reliable models, subject to modification when new observations and data become available. Your analogy is dreadfully inappropriate.
We don't know God exists. YOU THINK God exists. There is a huge difference. You need to learn the difference between knowledge claims and belief claims, and how evidence works. The fact that you got your analogy so terribly wrong doesn't indicate that this is likely to happen any time soon, but I strongly suggest you look into this.
This is the kind of reasoning that makes perfect sense to everyone with a developed emotional commitment/identification to it... but is completely insane to everyone not starting on the inside.
Exactly. Bishop Barron is, as a priest would be, so wrapped up in his religiosity and his "faith on the basis of context" sentiment; his worldview denies him validating approaches to theology such as analytic philosophy. He presumes much that can't be proven true and for others to recognize this perceived truth as such.
I was absolutely floored when he made the assertion that "believing in god is a reasonable thing" and then the "context" that one has from maintaining that belief makes it reasonable to assert that you could believe in the occurrence of some human having a divine interaction within "reason."
Bonkers to me, conceivable to them.
@@Dani-kh8mh Believing in God is a reasonable thing. The "context" he talked about is for accepting by faith what God has revealed. You can't prove what you accepted by faith, but you have enough context to trust the person and what he tells you.
@@Lerian_V How can you call it "revealed" if you have to rely on faith to accept it?
@@toxendon It is a revelation because 1) the information is not previously known, and 2) we cannot verify the information.
@@Lerian_V How can you call the information "known", if it cannot be verified?
you can dress it up all you want with phrases like “authentically construed” but ultimately faith is just belief without sufficient evidence.
Did you take on his point of view and read the people he had cited in this video before you made this comment (i.e. all of Paul Tillich's work on the concept of faith)? I highly doubt it. Yet here you are, making your mind up regarding the concept of faith based on Cosmic Skeptic's views. It sounds like you just have 'faith' in the atheists viewpoint here...
@@Joeonline26 if you require an entire novel to explain one word (faith), you have a shitty definition. That or you have a shitty understanding of the word.
"Authentically construed faith is surrender at the far side of reason" 😆
"Faith is a response to the revealing God", this is how he sums it up in the end, this seems to be in complete contradiction to the definition given in the Bible "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen"
Where in the Bible its the conviction of things not seen, it seems that a cornered Barren will just say the exact opposite to get out of the question.
@@lemonheadkw2493 Wow, what kind of invalid argument have you just advocated for? "If X cannot be defined in few words then you have a bad definition of X or a bad understanding of X". Honestly, think about how silly you sound making such an argument. And you're supposed to be the logical, rational atheist right? That's hilarious hahahaha
Very good editing choice to cut it at his last reply, without including your reply. A lot of time in a debate we feel the need to have the last word, but very often it is better to leave the last word to the opponent when it is clear to everyone listening that his reply is a losing argument.
You’re not wrong, but Alex didn’t actually get to reply to that last bit; the moderator decided to move on to the next topic.
I listened to the full discussion and Alex was grasping at straws while the bishop pummeled him with logic.
@@Lerian_V D O U B T
@@Lerian_V Interesting: I used the "grasping at straws" analogy about you on another comment thread here. What goes around comes around.
@@davidgould9431 Remind me where please. Did I respond?
"To teach a man religion is like a parent teaching a child to be loyal, or sober, or honest. If loyalty, or sobriety, or honesty become the sport of public debate and public contradiction, their moral force is weakened for those who wish to weaken them. And if the truth of religion becomes a matter of public debate in newspapers, the effect is not like a debate on the truth of utilitarian philosophy. Once religious beliefs are equated with philosophical opinions and so become matters of purely intellectual argument, skepticism has won." -- Owen Chadwick
Bishop Barron errs by attempting to suggest that religion is justifiable on the basis of logic and argument. It isn't, and that's all that Alex O'Connor is (rightly) trying to say.
Personally, at the far side of reason instead of saying “I surrender. I accept this claim even though there isn’t enough evidence to support it” I instead say “I don’t know. I don’t have enough information to make an informed decision”.
I’ll never understand why saying “I don’t know” is unacceptable to so many people. They need to have an answer and it doesn’t matter much to them whether the answer is actually correct.
Christianity is WAY beyond "I don't know". It is one of the religions that is LOGICALLY INCONSISTENT. There can be NO "all loving god" who PROMOTES and HANDS DOWN LAWS FOR SLAVERY: Leviticus 25 and Exodus 21.
to say NOTHING of the genocide in the bible, and the slaughtering of innocents, including children, unborn fetuses and animals...
@@brianmi40 No argument here.
It's difficult to tell people they have been indoctrinated when such a large percentage of the world believe this stuff. But if took an adult aside and told them we have discovered the real god... it turns out the actual god is one no-one had conceived of before... all other religions are wrong. Then we explained how this true god sanctions human slavery, beating of slaves, murdering neighbouring peoples (sometimes including children and livestock), dictates rape victims should be put to death if they didn't scream (because clearly that means they wanted it and are committing adultery) etc etc. If we did this and claimed this true god was perfectly moral, we all know the reaction we'd get. The person hearing this would recognise it as woefully immoral and would point out how ridiculous it is to claim any of this could come from a perfectly moral god. At least, that's what they'd do right up until the point they recognised we were tricking them and were really pointing out things from the bible. That's the point where the equivocation would kick in and the excuses would start flowing.
A lot of people feel that admitting not knowing something is a "weakness" of some type. Same as admitting one is wrong. The Ego takes a hit and some folks can't take that queasy feeling that they've been bullshitting their way through life and need to rethink everything. So they stamp on whatever answer feels right to them and keep on trucking.
Fear, ontological insecurity, perceived loss of status, threat over-detection and avoidance, submission to authority, binary decision-making... all thanks to an almond-shaped little nubule in the limbic region of the brain.... the right amygdala.
The main reason to my mind is that 'I don't know' can only work in reason, it is unlivable. You always have to act one way or another, because decisions time out, while debates can last forever.
In the analogy about learning to trust someone, for an actual person, at least you can reasonably establish that the person in question ACTUALLY EXISTS!! 🤦♂️
Exactly what I thought.
Well you can't it's nothing more than electrical signals you don't even know you existed yesterday or even now as a physical presence
@@davidevans3223 to quote Matt Dillahunty: "You're a SOLIPSIST?!?!"
@@JohnCena8351 I.like it when people quote other's it's proof they don't have anything useful to say
@@davidevans3223 I like it when people don't understand jokes.
It's proof they're as smart as a wet brick.
classic Barron, only he truly understands “faith”, and you do not; everyone who disagrees with him uses the term incorrectly; when he gets on the subject of the ineffable, beyond spacetime god it even gets worse; with Barron, every criticism is met with an accusation of ignorance.
exactly
Matt M your reply is based on assuming anyone who disagrees with Barron doesn’t have the qualifications to do so. As if having an opinion about faith is something one has to be qualified for. If that were true, no one would be qualified.
thank you mr Mayuiers, an introductory course to the philosophy of religion will expose one to a number of the authors listed, so im not sure that your claim of an ignorant modern world is valid
"The modern world hasn’t been exposed to the authors..." the modern world is well aware of said authors; the criticism here is to the relevance; it is ironic that in the first 3 centuries of the church there was a stated opposition to gnosticism; you and mr Barron seem to to be pining for a renaissance of esotericism;
thank you for the clarification, mr Mayuiers;
Mr Barron began the vid with an analogy of accepting a testimony of a person on nothing more than on its face value; the act of faith that the person is telling the truth is an act of charity; you are giving the person the benefit of the doubt that they are telling the truth precisely because you lack full knowledge;
at the end of the vid, mr Barron defines his terms, “faith is a response to a revealing god”
the problem with this definition is that you have to assume that what is being revealed is a being beyond spacetime;
when you combine mr Barron’s analogy with his definition, this reveals the problem; because not only do you lack full knowledge of what is being said, you also lack knowledge of the existence of the person who is saying it; mr Barron pretends this is reasonable and is equitable with any reasonable claim;
if I say “my family loves me” you can watch me interact with my family to observe if it is true;
if i tell you “god loves me” you can only observe me, and assume an interaction and never know weather it is true or not;
reasonably, they are not the same thing; mr Barron would pretend that they are
What drives me crazy is the use of metaphor and symbolism. "God speaks to us, but not in a voice coming from the clouds sort of thing."
Well if it isn't a voice from the clouds, what is it exactly? Is it a voice in your head? Does he send you an email? What the hell is it *Exactly*?
@@rohan7224 that's called schizophrenia and if you have that, you need help.
@@rohan7224 except that fundamentalists buy into the whole thing while atheists don't buy into *any* of it!
@@rohan7224 I did neither express nor imply any such thing. The bible says the bible is the inerrant word of god, a nearly perfect ring of circular reasoning. There is no need to have any purpose or genre.
@@rohan7224 I find it odd that we need to have "the church" in order to properly translate the objectively good, inerrant word of god. Even funnier how pretty much every religion translated to differently. It's almost as if the entire thing is subjective and no one really knows what the "real" translation or meaning is.
It seems a little obtuse to me to attack religion for being too metaphorical. It rather seems to me that religion becomes nonsense only when taken too literally. I am an agnostic atheist, but religion makes almost perfect sense to me as a metaphor. I think I can honestly understand the experience of being "spoken to by God" when percieving the beauty of the laws governing the universe, in the homecoming embrace of Nature, through the sublime rapture of the stars, in the intensity of aesthetic bliss, through the humbling magnificence of love - in short, whenever I find myself oceanically immersed in moments of self-transcendence or existential confrontation with the naked mystery of existence. No doubt I attach quite a different metaphysics to these kinds of experiences from most religious people, but I think we tend to share our experiences in common even if we apply different conceptual schemes to them. Certain experiences are so exalted, or approach ineffability in their mysteriousness, that any attempt to describe them literally will usually itself be nonsense. At the very least, reverential metaphor can sometimes be entirely appropriate.
Such equivocation! The good Bishop clumsily states, "Faith ... it's a surrender at the far side of reason ..." @ 1:47.
Yes, it's a stretch of what is reasonable.
It's incredible how many words some people can use to say nothing. I like how Alex is able to keep track of the inane babble and dissect it.
When pressed to actually give a definition of faith he says "faith is the response to a revealing god" which is just more words which say nothing.
Who elected this guy to decide that the person in the Bill Maher reference was wrong about what faith is anyway? At least that person was honest.
I would have thought that faith isn't usually based upon no evidence but a lack of sufficient evidence to justify the conclusion. Still illogical, but not quite as bad.
@@someone6170 depends on how you define evidence. I don't consider a book, physiological responses, or various logical fallacies to be evidence.
@@ROFT it does depend on what one considers evidence. Apparently our standards of evidence are too stringent for theists, as it would keep them from what they want to do, which is believe in god.
@@ROFT It really doesn't depend on how you define evidence. That would be the case if he were talking about philosophical arguments, which just as logical fallacies and mathematical proofs are considered a form of evidence by some, if not many people.
He was however talking about faith and faith, together with your examples of a book or psychological reactions isn't considered evidence by any honest person.
Seems like the more "educated" a theist is the more wordsalad without content you get.
The Bishop is speaking in tongues. If he had an actual definition for “faith”, he’d just clearly say that, but since he doesn’t, he just makes a bunch of noisy words sound like a definition.
Yea it's called moving the goal posts. It's refusing to be have a concrete definition in order to slip away when cornered on something. It doesn't lead you anywhere in a discussion just in to the weeds. Which is where religion gets you. It's the reason there is no 1 version of Christianity but rather 30,000 + denominations cos faith is an absolutely useless tool for discerning fiction from reality.
Faith is believing without seeing, although it isn't as superficial as it sounds
I think saying “faith is believing without seeing” is just skipping past the conversation here. Other than religion, where else do you settle for faith? That’s ultimately what atheists in general are saying is that we call BS on changing the “rules” for believing in something and giving religion an exemption from the rational, critical thinking path to belief.
@@homiesenatep again another vague or ambiguous description that doesnt lead you anywhere fruitful
@@BSwenson yea agreed but if I could just make an addendum to this and clarify that all atheists do not share the same views when it comes to critical thinking and scepticism, what I mean is some people aren't atheist for good reason, some people do not express scepticism and rational thinking but rather cynicism. All atheism means is "you do not accept the claim that some god or gods exists." There is no creed or doctrine to atheism.
An example is I have a cousin who happens to be gay and calls himself an atheist. He doesn't accept the god of the bible because in his words " the bible doesnt accept me so i don't accept the bible ." Yet this same person is superstitious and believes in ghosts and haunted hotels. He isn't an atheist for any good reason other than he's gay and the bible doesn't "support" homosexuality. Yet has no problem lumping himself in the category of atheist.
The Bishop's initial definition of 'faith' was actually the definition of 'trust'. He failed to explain how you can trust in something that has no evidence to back it up.
Well said.
The comment I was looking for
Also importantly, trust is a very relative thing. You may trust your friend if he says he needs to borrow $1000 to fix his car. But would you trust him if he said the gun he just handed to your 2yo daughter is unloaded?
Inhabe a very good friend and we both have a well established understanding that nothing we say to each other is authoritative or correct in any way
He doesn't address that there are levels of credulity. If your trusted friend says (without evidence) that he's never tasted coffee, you might be inclined to believe him as that statement doesn't particularly push the bounds of credulity. If, on the other hand, he claims that he has the power of teleportation, that would be something you'd be less likely to accept.
It’s great to see that even with the end of the 2020 Olympics you managed to find a gold medalist of mental gymnastics
Best dad-joke of the month!!!
Your comment made me smile
😊
Bishop Barron's explanation of faith has been the best I've heard yet. The crux of philosophy being less encompassing of the universe than theology is right. There is the analogy between dreams and reality. One comes to know the difference because a dream can only be recalled in reality, that is reality is greater in scope than a dream that is, in fact, very narrow. So to, philosophy is relative narrow and scientific to the all encompassing universe of God.
"Faith is the response to the revealing God".
Two problems, real quick:
● That's really unhelpful, because now we don't even agree that faith exists.
People of (true) faith can never be wrong, correct? By definition.
● This definition clearly goes against what pretty much everyone means by "faith", including himself two minutes before, when he spoke about faith in what some guy tells him.
How analogy is fallacious.
"Things, hunches, intuition, experience, and knowledge" are all a reason to believe and trust a friend (except maybe intuition) without blindly being gullible and following a fake friend who doesn't love you. So it fails to fit into the faith category, is he trying to redefine faith?
that's classic new-age christianity. being poetic and vague to make simple things sound more smart and attractive.
I encourage everyone to listen to the full discussion Alex brilliantly brings up all the holes in Barron's logic. Alex is really doing god's work!
One thing left out of this clip: Belief isn't so much of a polar state. It's gradual.
If someone tells me he has a dog, fine. I'll "believe" it. No problem.
But would I bet my life that he has told me the truth?
No, I wouldn't.
It just seems REASONABLY more likely that he's telling me the truth about his dog. And that's the extent of my "belief".
It's ALWAYS based on reason. And if you show me that any of my beliefs is actually based on faith, guess what: I'll stop believing it.
The only thing that MAYBE could fit SOME definition of "faith" is my acceptance that there's an actual world that I perceived through my senses. But that's just a very reasonable working assumption.
@@facundocesa4931 existence of actual world is based on observation and experience has nothing to do with faith
@@scambammer6102 It is a reasonable working assumption that my experiences of an external world corresponds to an external world.
I can never demonstrate it's true. I have to assume it.
That's the bare minimum that I have to accept without demonstration. I wouldn't call it"faith", because it's pretty reasonable.
"Priest : Faith is not believing without evidence."
Explains how faith is believing without evidence.
For this reason, most of the time he explained "what faith is not"! 😁
“Faith is called faith because it’s not evidence”. Christopher Hitchens.
Faith is just Holy Hope.
" Belief in god is a reasonable position to hold." No it isn't. Belief in something you can't prove is unreasonable.
It's belief without sufficient evidence. Christians rely on mountains of evidence to warrant their beliefs.
Faith is a response to the revealing god. Great. When he reveals himself I will have faith.
"Faith is a response to the revealing God". Which comes first, the revealing or the faith?
Do you struggle with the English language or did you get high on chromosomes before posting this?
"Response" clearly indicates an action or event which follows a preceding action or event. If faith is a response to revelation than the revelation obviously comes first.
@@grantgooch5834 get high on... chromosomes? What? 😂
@@leslieviljoen That was an attempt at an insult: high on chromosomes, i.e. having an extra chromosome, e.g. trisomy 21 which leads to Down Syndrome.👎
@@YAWTon ah I see. Kinda disgusting.
"Faith is the excuse people give when they don't have a good reason to believe" Matt Dilahunty
But should be: ~ The Atheist 😁👍🤘
@@wtfjesus8251 They actually are atheist but too afraid to admit it.
@@david-pb4bi Who is afraid to admit they are atheists?
@@skarpheinnsmundsson9741 The people who don’t have good reason to believe, pay attention.
@@david-pb4bi That does not follow. No religious person has a good reason to believe in their religion, they have to rely on faith cause there is no proof for any god that does not mean that all or any of them are atheists and afraid to admit it.
Too many "religious experts" assume that Alex, being so young, couldn't possibly defend his beliefs. He comes off as a lot more honest in this exchange. The Bishop is tossin' a word salad without even including croutons.
I hate it so much when religious people are cornered and they start bending the meaning of words and redefining what words mean to get out of the situation!
@@mayyas8924 It's not only the religious who do that, I find it's a very common tactic of those losing an argument
@@mayyas8924 I dont think he is bending words but rather he just has a different definition already. He may be incorrect but its not as though he has realised he is wrong and is lookng for another way to win the argument, he just does not believe himself to be wrong
What beliefs is Alex defending? Just because you don't understand someone's lexicon does not mean the person is not honest or speaking the truth. The bishop is a professor, lectured for almost two decades before becoming a bishop. Alex is a student. If for anything, the bishop is toning down on his lexicon to help Alex to understand. You can find videos of Bishop Barron's high class lectures which he gives once every year. You just don't know philosophy or theology.
To be fair here: The Bishop doesn't claim anything. He is asked what faith is to him and then he tries to convey his personal experience of faith with words hopefully understandable to others.
I personally do not say that I would understand or buy this attempted explanation but he is definitely not making up word salad to propose or attack or defend something.
He was asked a question.
Have a great day!
The religious will forever avoid coherently and unambiguously defining terms, for fear that application of logic or reasoning will just totally destroy their comforting delusions.
Delusion lol you don't have a better exsplantion the best most scientists can come up with is infinite everything so we were the inevitable cause but clearly nothing like God because they can't admit they are wrong
@@davidevans3223 fucking hell you have a lot of time on your hands replying to so many comments and trying to provoke people
@@davidevans3223 You’ve literally just given a perfect example of an argument from ignorance fallacy. Congratulations!
@@BeneathWalls there's nothing ignorant I've been an atheist most of my life just over a year as a Christian i would never deny science why would I but to me it's clear God exists but the point is you don't know you have no exsplantion for the universe clearly if we could make it we would like computer game's we are also trying to make conscious beings in al robot's and computer simulations so usless you believe in all of everything we are the most advanced life then you can't rule out that something could and would make what we call the universe.
If you use infinite number of universes or other beliefs NOT science to disprove God it's you that's ignorant
@@davidevans3223 The universe and computers sharing the trait of complexity doesn't mean they share the trait of being created. That would be a false equivalence.
The bishop seems to think that belief is a choice. We don't decide what we believe and what we don't believe. We are either convinced that a claim is true or we are not convinced or we are convinced that the claim is not tue. We can choose or decide to accept a claim but that does not necessarily lead to belief.
I feel like I have had to say this about a million times this past 3 months.
@@macmac1022 It's wrong. belief is based on information same as knowledge. Change the info, change the belief. By your definition beliefs would never change.
@@scambammer6102 " It's wrong. belief is based on information same as knowledge. Change the info, change the belief. By your definition beliefs would never change."
Ummmm, you are proving us right. You are showing how its not choice but being convinced by information. In light of new information might change your beliefs if that new information falsifies what you belief before was. Just for an example, I cannot just chose to believe in a flat earth, right now I am convinced its a sphere by information so I cannot undo that information to just chose and change my belief, it will take new information to falsify that the world is spherical and point towards a flat earth enough to convince me for it to become a belief of mine.
Can you show me an example of someone just choosing a different belief without any new information being added?
art is probably a better analogy for atheists because when you read something good or watch a good movie, you know you are in contact with the good. it's out of you it's revealing itself and you venerate it essentially. But you still have to open yourself for it.
@@nathanluz1218 "art is probably a better analogy for atheists because when you read something good or watch a good movie, you know you are in contact with the good. it's out of you it's revealing itself and you venerate it essentially. But you still have to open yourself for it."
But art is subjective. When I look at some of those paintings that are abstract, I see a child finger painting wildly with no rhyme or reason, to me, they look like crap.
Wtf was that at the end?! Why would someone need faith to believe in a god who's already revealed himself? Wouldn't its existence just be the case? God damn circle talk
You don’t have reality in the unintelligible sense data
"Faith" is a response to the "revealing god?" What an incredibly circular chain of statements!
"The far side of reason".
Out of a wish to be polite, I will limit myself to saying that I can't take that seriously.
*tips fedora
Love the clip, Alex. If anyone is reading this comment prior to watching the video, get your popcorn ready.
Bishop Barron: "Faith is the most misunderstood word in the religious lexicon, b/c it is construed just that way. Faith means some wild credulity, some crazy superstition. Believing any ole nonsense on the basis of nothing. That is not what faith is."
(10 min later)
Alex: "It would be helpful to the listener, and to me, if we could have a sentence, perhaps, that sums up what faith is, as a dictionary definition."
Bishop Barron: "I believe it is the response to the revealing of God. The response of the whole self in the presence of the whole God who reveals himself."
Bishop Barron should go back to the Bible, not Thomas Aquinas. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1
Haha! Don't let that silly Bible get in the way of religion.
@@wolfdwarf The Bible is a collection of Books the were chosen by the Catholic Church so the Catholic interpretation of God is the only faith on which one can base his beliefs for it is guided by the Spirit. The writing of the Saints are therefore just as holy as the writings in the Bible.
@godof79 They r both holy but the bible is the supreme one.
@@hugosylvestre6970 I'd like to see, for comparison, just how guided that church and process was, however, during the days of Torquemada? And Gregory XIII, say? If you could, to some degree, reveal that to me.
Or at least, your opinion, thereof. Fortunately, no schism or war is likely, if not all agree, in this chat.
And that this church, in your own words, chose the books, implies the Spirit must have been very active, indeed. Was the Spirit equally so active, then, in Torquemada's time? This may or may not need proper clarification.
Faith:
Belief without evidence,
Told by people without knowledge,
Of things without parallel.
Ambrose Bierce.
I'm an ex-Catholic and the Bishop's tendency to explain everything with stories, analogies and poetic language is extremely common in Catholic priests. Here, is speaking the same way he most likely speaks to his congregation or when believers come to him for spiritual guidance while Alex is trying to be rigorous. I've noticed it with other youtubers who are priests, they use their fatherly tone and condescending attitude that they find are effective when talking to believers of their church and then they wonder why atheists don't react positively to it.
even w the super powers they get by dipping into little boys
OMG @@nah-y4e Savage dude savage. Love it ☺️
Some people have accused me of being condescending....That means talking down to others....
Hi Giulia Lana. I was raised Protestant, still am, and find many protestant pasters to be more like Alex explaining, though frequently using short stories to illistrate their points. Anyway the bishop is a clergyman who is trained to communicate largely through stories (which is how most of us usually think). If you want to see Alex, who I think is training in philosophy and speaks in that manner, communicate with a Christian philosopher then there is a debate between him and William Lane Craig on youtube. I think you will find both of them use very strick language.
I wish you well
A Scotsman authentically construed is one who experiences the genuine nature of being a Scot.
Slow clap!
@@CorpeningMedia Thank you. Thank you. I will be here all week!
Truly, it is so.
The truth has been spoken. Let the wise hear.
How does one distinguish between “infra rational” and “supra-rational” ?
One is just superiour to the other... of of course it is my version that is superiour. What the others have is inferiour.
/s
That bit made me chuckle.
This priest is just a wordsmith who happened to find religion... he could as easily be selling cars or houses or a political ideology.
He just needs to be heard.
@Grutas Brolen I’m well aware of this. I grew up Catholic and we always looked at ourselves as intellectually superior to all other Christians. Those men you mentioned were certainly ambitious in their learning and spent a lot of time thinking and philosophizing. But ultimately most of their thoughts were just speculation and in many respects they thought things that even the Church today would see as abhorrent, such as Aquinas’s views on the death penalty. Aquinas himself threw away many of Plato and Aristotle’s beliefs. I could be mistaken but I believe Aristotle himself actually supported infanticide in many cases. Most of their philosophy is just speculation that later thinkers added their own speculation on top of over thousands of years. But regardless of everything I’ve said in this reply, you still didn’t answer my original question.
@Grutas Brolen what you tryna say by “effeminate”? People use that term in different ways so I wanna know which definition you’re using
@Grutas Brolen ?
I like the person tells you they have a dog/dragon arguement as used by Matt dillahunty & co. And btw listening to an intelligent clergyman spouting nonsense hurts my brain.
So agree. This is obviously an kind thoughtful and intelligent man, and to hear the things he is saying hurts my brain and also my heart. Such a waste. That’s what kills me the most. The billions of lives wasted choosing to either believe or pretend to believe so as not to cause friction among friends and family.
"The far side of reason..." I nearly peed myself!
I instantly thought of The Far Side comic of the kid pushing on the door that says ''Pull'' for the ''Midvale School For the Gifted.''
Ok but doesn't reason have a farside, because reason proceeds from first principles. Like there is such a thing as the nessescity of context right?
Faith is utterly useless. As Matt D rightfully asks: "Is there ANY position that I can´t hold, just by faith?"
Presumably, following the impenetrable nonsense of "faith is the response to the revealing god", Alex paused for 2 seconds then either laughed out loud or said "I rest my case".
Barron came close to saying that there was content in his divine interactions but he probably knew he might be asked about that so smartly turned off that road.
Barron and so many other apologists for superstition are forever moving the goal posts. When challenged about "reason," they argue that "faith" is "reasonable." And yet when "faith" is shown to be absurd (example: crackers can become bodies after a few Latin words), they argue that "faith" does not require reason at all because one must just "believe" the superstition (narrative, poetry, whatever).
The bishop’s final statement is actually perfect. A loving god WOULD therefor reveal himself unambiguously to all people. And since he hasn’t revealed himself to me at least, I can reasonably conclude he’s either not loving, or nonexistent.
Christ dying on the cross and rising again on the third day is the revealing sequence of actions. To demand from God a personal revelation seems to test God, and if He responds to your challenge, does that not make him less perfect and therefore not deserving of being called God?
@@hughcairney8623 why should I not have the same standard of evidence as Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Gideon, Samuel, David, Elijah, Isaiah, Paul, Peter, John, Barnabas, Simeon, Lucius, Manaen, or Saul?
“God” seems to be more than willing and able to reveal himself personally to any number of believers, doubters, and unbelievers alike, but I ask for evidence and that’s suddenly not allowed?
Ask, and you shall be answered. But only if it supports the fairytale.
@@hughcairney8623 also, you can’t even demonstrate that Jesus existed, let alone was resurrected, let alone was god.
@@basildraws I definitely see what you are saying, but I cannot help but hear a sense of jealousy in your answer (please do not take offense, I see it as reasoned jealousy but jealousy nonetheless). Why should you or I or anyone have the same standard of evidence as those people? Are we saying that all people are absolutely equal? "Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required" (Lk 12:48). Just as we are born into different circumstances to different parents, God may reveal himself differently to you or to me, what matters is what we do with this revelation. To me, we need faith in addition to reason, because as God is infinitely distant from us in perfection, our reason alone cannot possibly encapsulate God, so we add this idea of faith because it allows us to bridge the gap that is between us as creatures to the Creator. Further, it is for this reason that faith is considered a virtue by Christians, for if everything was knowable by reason, of what purpose is faith? Getting back to your point about the revelation to biblical figures, perhaps God out of his infinite wisdom deemed that revealing himself in this way to the biblical figures was necessary and proper because it would allow for Him to establish Himself in the world. I definitely do not think that the revelation of these figures is in any way complete, at best they only show a certain aspect of the idea of God, for as soon as we claim to know exactly what God is, he is by definition limited and in that way imperfect which is not befitting of God. I feel like this is a bit long winded, but I hope that I presented my thoughts clearly, anyways thanks for the conversation you have really made me think! :) Also with regards to my previous comment, I think I am incorrect in saying that he will not respond to you (as you pointed out "Ask, and it will be given you"). I meant only to say that demanding with the intention to change God's will is a fallacious task, I think that God is our final end, so if we ask of God how we may become aligned with him as our final end, we will definitely receive guidance.
@@hughcairney8623 I’m glad I’ve made you think, but you should really think some more. You’re just making one fallacious argument after another.
1. Jealous. No, I’m not jealous of fictional characters from a book. I listed those names to demonstrate that god, doesn’t have a problem breaking ‘free will’, or ‘a test of faith’ since he freely reveals himself whenever he chooses. He would know what evidence I need to believe in him, and if he truly wished that I reside with him for eternity, then would be capable and willing to provide that evidence; to reveal himself to me. Of course, this is all in the hypothetical since I don’t believe he exists in the slightest.
2. Faith. Your argument about the necessity of faith is circular. “We need faith, because if we didn’t need it, we wouldn’t need it.” Yup, that’s just about as circular as it gets. Faith is not a reliable path to truth. If person A believes a proposition on faith, and person B believes the opposite on faith, how can we know who is right? If faith can lead us just as easily to two opposing beliefs, then faith can’t be trusted as a path to truth. Faith is nothing more than cultural wishful thinking. You grow up believing what your local culture has conditioned you to believe. You don’t spontaneously develop faith in a religion you’ve never heard of before.
3. Perfection. All you’re doing here is providing a post hoc definition of a god that fits your narrative. He doesn’t reveal himself because he’s the kind of god that doesn’t reveal himself, because… reasons. And more to the point, the reasons are silly. I know tornadoes exist. I don’t understand how they work, but some special scientists do. Knowing about them doesn’t diminish what they are, nor cause them to cease to exist. Not knowing what they are similarly doesn’t have any effect on their existence nor their ability to wreak havoc. We may never fully understand how the universe works, so what? We can still study the physical world and learn from it. God’s hiddenness is not a virtue, it is an excuse.
All of this is not an attack on you, just on the ideas and their validity.
I still see no evidence of god, and I try not to give credence to ideas for which there is no evidence.
A lot of word salad from someone living in a “faith” bubble. He thinks he is being rational and gaining ground by conceding that call God doesn’t alk to you with a booming voice from the sky“ as some imagine. It’s just as bad if you are hearing voices that nobody else can hear, Priest.
Artificial intelligence explains this process very well. It's simply called 'confidence'. Confidence is based on a web of existing information and analysis which determines choices. Not all choices map directly to the confidence of a specific claim, but all decisions are still based on reasons that have a final confidence value based on the available information and analysis of that information. Emotions could be a part of the choice along with a reason or confidence value. No faith is needed.
Exactly. And religious confidence is unreasonable because the reasoning is flawed and subjective. Even the most reasonable theistic arguments depend on unfalsifiable statements and controversial logic.
@@benjaminhinz2552 does the complete denial of the existence of divinity not require the same logical leaps?
If faith is a "response to the revealing god", but people use faith to believe in different "revealing gods" - as well as what precisely these gods are "revealing" (the ideas of which may conflict with each other), then why/how is faith a reliable way to get at what truth is? If it isn't reliable in this regard, why use it? If it is reliable, why doesn't everyone who uses it come to the same conclusion?
Alex, after watching the full discussion between you and Bishop Barron, I thought that this discussion about "faith" was the highlight of the discussion. I left a comment about this on the full video. Barron is highly intelligent and well educated. His eloquence and erudition is obviously convincing to many in the Catholic Church. However, underneath the eloquence of his rhetoric is a simple minded belief system with no evidentiary basis. This focus on the meaning of "faith" clearly demonstrated this impression. Again, many would find his longwinded explanation convincing. Kudos to you for seeing right through his attempt to redefine "faith" as reason. It also makes me wonder when does defending one's religious beliefs with innocence and enthusiasm cross the line into obfuscation?
That final sentence is absolutely ludicrous.
No it's not, you are just unable to understand it to its full meaning.
@@hugosylvestre6970 No, it's nonsense.
This week on "Babbling Incoherently About My Imaginary Friend"
Faith is what people rely on when there isn't evidence for what they want to believe. Having faith, in that sense, is by definition harmful to rational thought
Faith is required for rational thought. Everyday u have faith in your own freedom of will and act upon it, this can be applied to the idea of a god aswell
@@TheFelimonFaith is the nonsense excuse assholes give for doing whatever they want and blaming their imaginary friend to avoid responsibility. Grow up, Santa isn't real either
@@KeatrithAmakiir you use faith everyday. u have faith that you will wake up the next day, u have faith that your friends wont steal from your house when u invite them to ur home. u use subjective belief everyday in ur life as objectivity is very hard to find. i am an athiest but to say that faith is nonsense is nonsense itself. faith is a core concept of life
The most interesting part was how calm delivery and seeming earnest intent could mask the absence of any real argument for the proposal, but you kept listening as there appeared to be a promise of something. After listening I realised if asked to repeat his rational I would at a loss to list anything, absolute white noise waffle, and his job is to speak and persuade.
It's really a perfect portrait of a priest: a man who postures as the keeper of higher, spiritual knowledge when really he just speaks with earnest confidence and sprinkles some Latin in here and there
Bishop Barron’s answer seems crystal clear to me. When assessing whether you are going to believe something you have just heard from someone (i.e.- “I have a headache.”), you’re going to use reason as far as possible to get as close to knowing the truth of their statement as possible (Are headaches real? Do they look pained? Have I ever caught this person in a lie? Etc.). But at some point, no assessment of the observable facts and no amount of reason is going to definitively prove that what this person is saying is true, and at the moment you decide to believe them, you’ve just performed an act of faith. Neither reason nor evidence were able to prove anything (one way or another), but they both ushered you toward your final conclusion and that final leap where you chose to believe something despite being unable to use reason or evidence to confirm it. It’s an act of faith. Similarly, people can have faith in God, whether through believing the word of others who, through reason and evidence, have been determined to be trustworthy, or through direct experience that is beyond anything reason and evidence can prove. This makes perfect sense to me.
Faith is a response to a revealing God meaning: Through reason, we can have faith that a claim that is unable to be ascertained is true based upon the congruencey and truth found in what can be ascertained at it's baseline. I hope that is worded clearly. Based upon what can be 100% substantiated, what is then not able to be confirmed with certainty can be entertained through faith based upon the congruencey of what is able to be ascertained at the root of the claim.
It really seems to come down to special pleading and imbuing subjective experiences with religious/spiritual significance.
He also added an aspect of believing what someone says about themselves in order to better understand their perspective. That sounds more like a hypothetical exercise, I do it by simply imagining what someone says they believe.
If someone seems honest I can take their word about what their beliefs are, as now I have a form of evidence supporting that they really believe it. But this doesn't involve believing anything about the world outside their heads.
That bishops definition of faith is some of the most twisted nonsense I have ever heard
Listen carefully again. Alex is misunderstanding the Bishop.
Religion is a confidence trickster. I think that's what Bishop Barton is trying to say. The more invested you get, the less you question things that you otherwise would know to be false. I love it when religious figureheads speak the quiet parts out loud.
People are expecting a cut and dry 1 sentence answer to somethings that cannot be understood in a single sentence. What can be reasoned cannot always be ascertained. Faith is a response to a revealing God meaning: Through reason, we can have faith that a claim that is unable to be ascertained is true based upon the congruencey and truth found in what can be ascertained at it's baseline. I hope that is worded clearly. Based upon what can be 100% substantiated, what is then not able to be confirmed with certainty can be entertained through faith based upon the congruencey of what is able to be ascertained at the root of the claim.
“Faith is a response to the revealing God.” What in the world does that mean?
"“Faith is a response to the revealing God.” What in the world does that mean?"
A few hours parsing Jordan Peterson and you may be an expert at figuring it out (or, alternatively, you could end up banging your head against a wall and repeatedly saying, "WTF kind of WORD SALAD IS THAT?").
It's a really stupid way of saying God DOES reveal himself, a little bit or enough, and after said revelation, we respond with faith, faith meaning we trust everything else he says there after.
Cosmic Skeptic, Alex, these are great. I still say faith is believing with no evidence. 👍💝🥰✌
Yes,
Hebrews 11:1 Faith is the confidence in things unseen.
Did you have an engineer assess if the ground you live on sits on top of a sinkhole prior to moving in or did you have faith that the ground was sturdy? Did you foresee your future prior to leaving your home today to make sure you would have no accidents and return home safely? .. the point is, we all exercise “faith” with no evidence.
@@35bmarini The house had been standing for years. None of the other houses are sinking. Evidence.
@@scienceexplains302 classic straw man
faith is believing without evidence, because if they had SOLID evidence for their beliefs they wouldn’t need faith..
It was very nice to see him being called out on his vague usage of words. When the flaw is pointed out and he was pushed to elucidate his position, he fell completely flat
Not really you just don’t understand vague terms like spoken or running, difference, repetition,
@@Catholictomherbert In a casual conversation, I have absolutely no issue with use of vague language, and I can understand what people are saying. In a conversation like this however, it is a lot more important to be precise in your phrasing because the other party can often have a slightly different understanding of the terms, which can have significant consequences
Bishop is not doing that.. Faith is a response to a revealing God meaning: Through reason, we can have faith that a claim that is unable to be ascertained is true based upon the congruencey and truth found in what can be ascertained at it's baseline. I hope that is worded clearly. Based upon what can be 100% substantiated, what is then not able to be confirmed with certainty can be entertained through faith based upon the congruencey of what is able to be ascertained at the root of the claim.
That's the most frequent if not the only strategy religious people can come up with: trying to change the standard definition of faith so they look less unreasonable.
Here is the difference:
I can have good reasons to believe a persons testimony, yet not believe it.
But I can’t have faith in a persons testimony and not assent to it. That would be a paradox.
If I have faith in a person, I not only can have a good reason to believe them, but I also do in fact BELIEVE them.
A very clever Bishop and well spoken words.... Still he cant explain Faith!
Well spoken, yes. Clever? Well I wouldn't say so. A Conman skilled at spewing word salads more like it.
Do you have faith that when you go to sleep you will wake up again? You trust that you will awaken again but there is no guarantee that you will. Do you trust that when you breathe air will keep you alive but there is no guarantee that it will? You just breathe on faith without giving it any thought and know it will keep you alive to the point where there is no effort involved.
He did explain it, you're in denial
I wish they had asked the Bishop, "Is faith reliable?", "Does it always result in believing the same thing?", "Can two people validly cite faith as the reason for believing in two contradictory ideas?", "How does a person determine which ideas can validly be held to be true based solely on faith and which require evidence?".
Except in a most abstract sense, faith does not always -- or perhaps even ever -- lead any two human beings to precisely the same result. But, on the other hand, faith can indeed result in paradox, which is precisely what one means when one refers to two diametrically opposed things which both appear to be true at the same time. Purely from the standpoint of history, this is shown in the contrast between, for example, Newtonian physics and quantum mechanics. If one relies upon nothing more than Aristotelean analysis, then quantum mechanics cannot be true, because it rejects some of the key concepts of the earlier physics -- which Newton and his followers believed was universally true. But now we know that, at the atomic and subatomic levels, particles (or waves, take your pick) react quite differently than the larger planetary cosmos in which we all live. Your last question is unanswerable except to the degree that one believes wholly in science and also wholly rejects the supernatural. Science relies wholly upon rational experiment. Faith is what happens only when and if one is capable of positing something beyond science. And what, exactly, is "beyond science?" It is perhaps just everything that science cannot yet tell us -- and that's a great deal indeed.
@@thomasthompson6378 You state . . . "And what, exactly, is "beyond science?" It is perhaps just everything that science cannot yet tell us -- and that's a great deal indeed."
If it's "just everything that science cannot YET tell us" then the statement is meaningless.
Science is the study of everything in the natural world, and since there is absolutely no evidence that there is anything that is NOT in the natural world, it is indeed the study of EVERYTHING.
You make the statement that "faith does not always -- or perhaps even ever -- lead any two human beings to precisely the same result". I agree wholeheartedly with that. But then you go on to state that " on the other hand, faith can indeed result in paradox". Yep. Faith results in different results AND results in paradox. Which means that it is totally UNRELIABLE as a means of establishing truth. Faith is useless. The beauty of science is that it recognizes our understanding of the universe GETS BETTER over time. Not so with faith. Faith says "I take this assertion as true solely on the basis that I take it as true without evidence", which is basically to assert that there IS NO BASIS for taking it as true.
And if my last question is unanswerable, the one asking how one determines what can and cannot be validly accepted as true "based on faith", then it precisely means that faith is a USELESS concept as the basis for believing ANYTHING.
@@thomasthompson6378 Newtonian physics and quantum mechanics do indeed contradict each other. Now we know that the former is wrong. When you say "this [the fact that faith can result in paradox] is shown in the contrast between [...] Newtonian physics and quantum mechanics", do you mean that both those models of reality required faith for being accepted as true?
I have a really really strong gut feeling that God exists. My guts cant be wrong, therefore god exists.
Guts are internal personal characteristic to the divine virtue of courage read more continental philosophers
Maybe you’re just constipated? Haha
Some feel the truth in their guts. Others say "I just feel it in my heart". Why do random feelings in random body parts outweigh thoughts in the mind (or the brain)?
@@AlDunbar good my boy? Can you make a distinction between what is called thinking, what your desires are and what the Chinese call “make your heart like a lake filled with kindness”? :)
@@Catholictomherbert not sure I can. Why don't you try first?
@ around 3:50 he talks about accepting my statements WITHOUT EVIDENCE. And sure, if I tell you I went to high school, you should probably accept that ‘on faith’. But if I tell you I GRADUATED from high school, you might need some evidence, particularly if you were hiring me for a job. If I went on to tell you I went to med school, you might accept that. I never said I was ENROLLED in med school…. And of course if you needed heart surgery you would SURELY want to know that I graduated, that I’m licensed, that I have an acceptable record, etc.
So yeah, you and I could accept a LOT of things without great evidence, or on someone’s word, or because we read it in a book, as long as those things don’t have a great impact on our lives. As long as they don’t matter much if they turn out to be false. But IMPORTANT things, like surgery, or a WORLD VIEW, things that matter the most, THOSE THINGS REQUIRE EVIDENCE. Faith is not enough.
The minimum effort needed to expose madness is to let the person just speak their mind. The safer and more comfortable they feel the more they will tell. And I think we have heard enough here.
"Faith is a response to the revealing god."
He made that up on the fly, as if: "yeah, that's the ticket, that sounded good. Let's go with that."
Why do you need faith, if god has revealed himself to you? Faith is only required for a non-revealing god. I wouldn't need faith to believe in aliens if an alien kidnapped me and stuck a probe up my ass.
@@jmg94j The idea is that God reveals himself in mysterious ways. We must seek him out and correctly interpret the evidence he left behind then decide whether or not to believe He exists.
It’s a pretty terrible concept full of holes, but that is what the priest is getting at.
I’m still waiting for the priest to explain what component there is of faith that isn’t part of reason. Everything he said sounds like reason to me.
@@lucanus8997
"Free assent to the whole truth that god has revealed."
1) What truth has god revealed.?
2) What god are you referring to.
@@JohnSmith-fz1ih "God reveals himself in mysterious ways. We must seek him out and correctly interpret the evidence he left behind." In other words, god doesn't reveal himself. He only leaves behind the flimsiest of evidence that can be easily confused with natural occurrences, or any other god for that matter. We also must have a deep, pathological need to find the evidence for god, before we can find the evidence for god. I would consider his arguments one giant hole, rather than full of holes.
@@jmg94j I agree, which is why I’m an atheist.
To my mind it’s not that the theistic view is illogical. It’s just that there’s no good evidence for it, and what people think is evidence is subjective personification of the environment which as you say can be evidence foe any god one wishes to make up.
How is it that the Bishop, instead of making the definitions of "faith" as clear as possible, spends most of his time saying what "faith" is NOT?!?!
So faith is “ the response to a revealing god”…if he would genuinely reveal himself, you would not need faith.
He reveals himself trough the Holy Spirit, the spirit works within yourself and other people, plus we do not see the spirit world, we feel it.
Faith is belief without evidence, trust is earned. God hasn't earned a SPECK of trust. Where was he during the Holocaust? Where is he now during the COVID pandemic? The only thing "omni" about God is his omni-*_ABSENCE!_*
"Surrender at the far side of reason" is the bishops first definition of faith. Why would a bishop need to resort to this greasy word salad? If you cannot dazzle them with brilliance baffle them with bs.
Sounds like God of the Gaps to me
It’s just because it sounds powerful/poetic and, as a bishop, that’s all he needs to convince his flock.
If "faith is a response to the revealing god" then I have absolutely no idea what George Michael was singing about.
Joy is the response to the revealing Santa Claus.
😂😂 Maybe he was singing about the revealing of that killer groove, baby.
@@Blue_3rd Well, I guess that would be nice.
My math teacher always said: faith is not knowing. That's it.
What do we know? How do we know? What is knowledge?
@godof79 yup, me and anyone else who has ever studied epistemology. Best not to question things, right?
@godof79 I studied for a master's in philosophy (UK terminology). The problem here that everything is a lot more complex than a few throwaway quotes might suggest. I'm pretty sure that Alex would agree.
@@plukethep Knowledge is irrelevant in the face of hard solipsism.
What matters is belief. Of that, people are either convinced or not.
I see NO REASON to be convinced of any god, MOST OF ALL the Christian god, who is one of the rare gods readily DISPROVEN by being a contradiction obvious to anyone reading the bible.
@@brianmi40 I'm not sure who is presenting a solipsism here. Understanding what we mean by knowledge and belief are hugely important. Language and the understanding of it are essential in any argument we present. There are many 'reasons' to believe in God, i.e. the arguments for the existence of God. You might not think they are persuasive, but others do. The same for arguments for Christianity. These people aren't necessarily mad or wrong, anymore than you are, if their priors hold. Understanding their positions and their use of language is the starting point to any reasonable discussion.
Should be titled "Conman tries to explain ignorance to rational human being"
No, that's antagonising. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
You both bring up interesting points.
When picking a TH-cam clip title, often times the producer exaggerates the content or aggravates the audience in an attempt to elicit more clicks. They deliberately antagonize in hopes of gaining more revenue. It's how the entire media industry works these days.
However, when one is in direct conversation, kindness and compassion (honey) can help achieve meaningful connection, trust, openness, and sharing, as opposed to antagonism, accusations or conflict (flies).
The medium is the message. :)
I feel it all comes down to "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. "
When my daughter tells me she had pizza for lunch, and: I know she likes pizza, I know and pizza was on the menu, then I have all the reasons to believe what she said was true without seeing her actually eating the pizza. But if she would say she had white unicorn meat with ferry dust and sparkles, I would have my doubts (I would most likely think it is something from a kid's menu).
Your mind is awake, yet you believe in something that you can’t prove. Yet you expect me to believe in him too.
"Faith is a response to the revealing god" - please may I have some mustard dressing for that word salad?
The Bishop is Deluded by the Magic he believes.
Faith is a response to the revealing spagetti monster. I mean...really? When no simple definition exists for your concept (faith) you just have to use nebulous, poetic sounding language; lots of "telling what's in one's heart" and the like. The charisma of this preacher is going to reel back in a lot of people suffering a "crisis of faith".
The Flying Spaghetti Monster is real; in fact, he is on the strongest ontological foundation of any of the gods. We will all kneel before Pasta! 😇.
Two things pop in to my mind here. The first concerns the scenario of a friend or associate telling you something and you either believing them or not. Our language even uses the phase, 'is it reasonable to believe them? The second point concerns the Bishop Barron and another phase from our lexicon, 'if you can't explain something so that your audience can understand you then you don't properly understand what it is you are trying to explain'.
His analogy doesn't hold - he says that we already have a relationship with this person we're talking to , so we believe what they say. But which thing is God here? If God is the interlocutor, then we must already have proof of his existence so the argument in irrelevant. If God's existence is the fact communicated by the interlocutor, either the interlocutor is the universe (in which case there must be evidence for God somewhere in the world) or scripture (which we have little reason to trust).
Is my reasoning correct?
I didn't realize from the title this was going to be a tap dancing video.
I love when people say faith isn’t believing without evidence just to explain in a very round about way that faith is believing in something without evidence.
He didn't. He made it more akin to an "educated guess". An educated guess is based on evidence. It's just not conclusive in the way a repeated peer review study is. That's faith
He's just not great at articulating it
Bishop Barron: 'God has created this world our of love'.
A creator who created a world where one animal or creature has to kill and eat another in order to sustain itself could not be a loving god.
And don't tell me it's all because of Adam and Eve eating the damned fruit.
How anyone can read the Bible and come to the conclusion God is love, utterly escapes me.
Funny that the Bishops final summary of what faith is, is rather different as to how it is defined in the bible. Which would be that it is "belief in things unseen" (from the book of Corinthians I think). I suspect he has just tried to massively tailor his definition for his arguments sake.
Why doesn't he just be honest and say 'faith is the reason I give to believe something without evidence'?
"Faith is the most dishonest position there is"----AronRa
Amen 😅
That was a lot of words to simply say “ Faith is believing something when you don’t have a good reason”
Wrong. Bishop is not doing that.. Faith is a response to a revealing God meaning: Through reason, we can have faith that a claim that is unable to be ascertained is true based upon the congruencey and truth found in what can be ascertained at it's baseline. I hope that is worded clearly. Based upon what can be 100% substantiated, what is then not able to be confirmed with certainty can be entertained through faith based upon the congruencey of what is able to be ascertained at the root of the claim.
Coincidentally, I had a conversation the other day with someone who was offering the bishop's argument. He defined faith as something we have for a person. He thought that I might have had faith in a childhood friend who could help me with my homework. Predictably, he didn't understand why my prior knowledge of my hypothetical friend's good grades, fine work ethic, and excellent results in class would give me evidence to base a reasonable expectation that my friend could help me. Also predictably, this was hit attempt to sneak in faith in his imaginary friend named Jesus of whom we have little evidence at all.
Bishop is not doing that.. Faith is a response to a revealing God meaning: Through reason, we can have faith that a claim that is unable to be ascertained is true based upon the congruencey and truth found in what can be ascertained at it's baseline. I hope that is worded clearly. Based upon what can be 100% substantiated, what is then not able to be confirmed with certainty can be entertained through faith based upon the congruencey of what is able to be ascertained at the root of the claim.
Alex, the best explanation for the Bishop's thinking could be found in the lecture by Robert Sapolsky titled " The biological underpinnings of religiosity". I personally think it's an eyeopener. I think you will have second thoughts about debating a religious person in the future.
I have now had a second thought.
I still don't find religion to be reasonable.
Sure, that initial definition of faith makes sense to me, and under the Bishop's definition, I could be said to have faith in people.
However...
When Jeff from Budgens tells me a story about what happened to him yesterday, and I have seen evidence that contradicts Jeff's narrative, I stop believing what Jeff tells me.
When Jeff contradicts himself, I stop believing what Jeff tells me.
When Jeff repeatedly manages to convince me that he is telling the truth despite these contradictions, constantly twisting his narrative, guilt-tripping me into believing him, and claiming the moral authority to control my every waking moment, I am being abused.
"What is your definition of faith?"
"Faith is the response to a revealing God."
That isn't even a definition, and it certainly isn't reasonable. The bishop, like many religious figures, doesn't like faith being characterized as unreasonable, but then has no good reason to justify it being seen as anything else.
Faith is to see what you believe, one who has faith for a day will have faith forever because it proves itself. Once you feel God, you will be utterly convinced of his existence. I used to be an atheist but you cannot escape the truth of Christ.
@@hugosylvestre6970 That could lead to any religion and they can't all be true. If you - like me - like evidence then as you accumulate data it becomes ever harder to believe. No version of the Christian God that I've heard proposed is even possible and I don't believe the impossible.
Sooo.....can the Bishop demonstrate his faith? Can he demonstrate the “revealing god” revealing itself in some measurably significant way?
It’s okay Bishop, we’ll wait....
"Faith is a response to the revealing God" - so if god hasn't revealed himself to you, you cannot have faith.
th-cam.com/video/2Mjtw3gEMwA/w-d-xo.html
Yes. Even the disciples of Jesus didn't believe Jesus was God despite the miracles he did until he showed himself to them after he rose from the dead
@@randominterestingvideos4733 You forgot to add some important information at the beginning of your assertion. Which is 'It is reported by people who were told it by people who were never there several decades and possibly centuries after the events happened that.......'
@@billgreen576 it's not true. Do your research well.
@@randominterestingvideos4733 I agree with you stage 12. Pretty much of the Bible is not true. Can you cite any independently verified 'fact' from the Bible? And which Bible? There have been so many versions.
Alex thank you for taking the time to learn about the Catholic Faith. I’m praying for you 🙏🏻✝️🙏🏻✝️
From 3:06 to 3:20 the information just infers it’s a personal choice to believe following supply of information that may be false or true. Con men actually make living from exploiting this concept!
"Faith is a response to the revealing god"...what a nonsense statement. Why would one need Faith if someone or some god "revealed"/showed up and introduced themselves? I'm gonna go watch the whole convo, surely that bishop can do better? Always amazed when people say shit like that and think they've said something profound when they've just said something stupid. Keep up the good work CS....😉😉
This is the result of not considering the Bible to be evidence.
I think a problem is believers get tangled up in this strange pull of defining faith that’s easily a euphemism or is synonymous to something like a belief without sufficient evidence or reason. It’s as if they’re trying to describe an activity they do, and we point out that they’re racing cars. They say, “Oh, no. Racing? I don’t race. I’m actually against racing. What we do is effectively and authentically try and see who can get to the other side the fastest.”
Alex is just scary reasonable and eloquent!
I listened to the Bishop's description of coming to know a person and have trust and confidence in that person. If you have trust and confidence in a person, believing what that person says can seem to be a rational act as opposed to being an act of faith. This is the standard recruitment strategy for every cult from the Hare Krishnas to the Scientologists. They invite the recruit to a dinner or meeting at which everything is friendly. The revelation of the theology doesn't come until after the recruit has become emotionally invested in the group.
What is rational cannot always be ascertained, so, Faith is a response to a revealing God meaning: Through reason, we can have faith that a claim that is unable to be ascertained is true based upon the congruencey and truth found in what can be ascertained at it's baseline. I hope that is worded clearly. Based upon what can be 100% substantiated, what is then not able to be confirmed with certainty can be entertained through faith based upon the congruencey of what is able to be ascertained at the root of the claim.
@@John.Christopher You can apply the same faith-based approach to arrive at any belief system. Hence, we have an estimated 4000 different religious denominations in the world.
"faith is a response to the reveal of god"...what does that even mean?
"Faith is the excuse you give to believe something without evidence"
@Jef van Becker ok, you convinced me Jesus and god are real. Now i will worship Satan because ypur god is responsible for the murder of at least 2 million people if you keep count from the bible. Your god is ok with slavery too, exodus 21. God also ordered babies be cut into pieces. Your god sends good decent people to hell. Your god is a mob boss, "worship me or i'll sent you to hell, but i love you though"
@Jef van Becker Nice lore there dude, would love to play DnD with you