I like Daniel already. Not given to hyperbolic language, has a solid grasp of the topics, wears a nice vest, and knows how to explain what's in his mind clearly.
You've been leveling up with the quality of your recent videos, we all notice and appreciate your efforts and look forward to what you have in store for us next.
😎 I have my own version and I bet it is more convincing that any of the previous ones. I showed the firm philosophical basis behind these arguments in my book.
Thank you two fine gentlemen for this amazing discussion that I understand and appreciate about 70% of, and know that when I rewatch this in a few years - after getting more educated on the philosophical terms - I will come to understand and appreciate more of what I currently don't understand! Thank you both
I thought going into this that the ranking would be based on the merit of the arguments for proving the existence of God (As was sort of suggested in the the bit on the Kalam). It seemed to me though that Rubio was actually ranking them based on the quality of philosohical discussion the arguments generated within other areas of philosophy. Since Rubio thinks there is no silver bullet argument that shows God is probable, maybe a dedicated section to discuss the rubric of the tierlist might be more helpful next time. Great discussion all around though.
@MajestyofReason Are you aware of the criticism that Andrew Ter Ern Loke has made of Paulogia and Bart Erham's skeptical positions about the resurrection ? He has also criticized other skeptical scholars on his TH-cam channel. It seems that he is very sure of his positions, so it would be interesting to do an analysis of his arguments with the help of other academics. Joe, could you recommend bibliography or specialized academics who argue for and against the resurrection? In these debates I keep asking myself: Even if God exists, does that necessarily make one of humanity's religions true?
Thank you. Very interesting. I think you guys are much more generous than me, but being more involved in and knowledgeable about the subject, you rate the arguments on such things as style and historical impact, whereas I rate them solely on how convincing the arguments are to me. Also regarding religious experience, I can personally attest (and I know of others as well) that such experiences do not necessarily sustain someone in such beliefs over time. So the theists, I think, would have to address that. New subscriber. Came here from your recent appearance on the Magic Skeptic channel, which I enjoyed very much. Look forward to exploring your channel. 👍
I am nothing close to the level of a professional philosopher but I would like to say a few things about the Moral Knowledge Argument. (I have yet to read Crummett’s and Swinson’s article but I have heard the argument enough that I feel that I get the gist of the argument). As I’ve heard it, I am skeptical of the dialectical force of the argument. According to proponents of Moral Debunking Arguments, it seems that the Moral Evolutionary Debunker can make a somewhat plausible story for why it appears that we have moral knowledge. Basically, because our evolutionary ancestors believed that some actions like murder and unfairness were wrong, their descendants would have received these same dispositions to believe these actions were immoral since having these beliefs would increase reproductive fitness. So evolution would produce agents who believed some things were wrong/right and would consequently believe that they had moral knowledge. At this point, both the naturalist and theist have the same datum: “we believe that we have moral knowledge.” If that’s all the theist has to use to run their argument, it should be easy to see why a compotent naturalist would be able to block the argument. Now I want to say another (hopefully) interesting thing in regard to the Moral Knowledge Argument. I don’t believe that Explanationist/Evolutionary Debunking arguments against Moral Realism actually work. More specifically, I think a Moral Realist can adopt an epistemological theory similar to philosophers like William J Fitzpatrick and Michael Huemer. They hold that (at least) humans have a capacity for generating a priori knowledge that is somewhat realiable. This mechanism that generates our a priori knowledge gives us knowledge of modality, epistemology, morality, mathematics etc. Adopting this epistemological theory is much more plausible than accepting the Evolutionary Debunking argument because if the debunking argument succeeded, then it would also debunk our epistemological beliefs which are required to run the argument in the first place, thereby making the evolutionary debunking argument self defeating. (I could explain why I believe this but it would take up too much space). However, if the naturalist accepts this epistemological theory of a priori knowledge, it seems extremely unlikely that evolution or natural processes alone could give us such a mechanism. This would then increase the probability in theism since God would plausibly want his created agents to be able to understand their environment and be able to act morally and reasonably. I’ll leave a few resources that were extremely helpful in my research. “Morality and Evolutionary Biology” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy “A Liberal Realist Answer to Debunking Skepticism: The Empirical Case for Realism” Michael Huemer “Debunking Debunked? Challenges, Prospects, and the Threat of Self-Defeat” Conrad Bakka dissertation The last resource listed was by far the most illuminating. It brings together a huge amount of literature on moral debunking arguments and ultimately shows that it is extremely difficult to pull off a successful debunking argument.
@MajestyofReason Joe. One day you said that if you returned to being a theist you would convert to a universalist Christianity. Now, that would imply that you accept that a man who walked and taught in ancient times was in fact the "son of god" or god himself made flesh and that that part of the Bible is not metaphorical or hyperbolic but literal. But also on the other hand the variable of "universalism" would imply accepting that the theodicy of sin is capable of explaining the reality in which we live and that in fact there are a series of rituals and perhaps beliefs that must be practiced to get closer to god. Now, if we accept that Jesus was god made flesh: Which of his teachings should we follow? All this based on the testimony of people who claim to know what Jesus taught. Should we follow their supposed teachings as recorded in the Catholic, Evangelical, Protestant, Orthodox canon or perhaps their supposed heterodox and heretical teachings that are not found in any of the canons mentioned? Now, were the teachings of Jesus or other supposed divine beings in history extraordinary, superior and correct enough to deduce that they came from a perfect, all-powerful and omniscient being like God? Finally, something that bothers me is how other cultures come to such dissimilar conclusions about the nature of the divine. Are they all wrong? Is the Western Christian canon closer to the truth? As the philosopher from the Absolute Philosophy channel argued when criticizing Bernardo Kastrup's idealism: "I have good arguments to affirm that the fundamental cause of reality is a personal conscience" (paraphrasing). I suppose that from there it is much easier to reach Christianity. I don't know. This is distressing to me. And I have never been particularly religious. If you have time to answer the other 3 questions I asked you, I would be very grateful...
The thing about the infinite that gets me is the existential vs mechanistic clash. In every time ordered infinite chain, the person who defends the possibility, is always committed to the idea that the mechanism responsible for the infinite series is never capable of creating it. Take, for example, an infinite chain of universes, each replacing the previous one, one at a time. The infinite chain portrays itself, in mechanism(frankly also in narrative), as laying itself down one universe at a time, but an extrapolation from such an observation would lead one to the conclusion that the whole chain was/could be laid down one at a time by way of addition (People often say the "Weird" thing about infinite time is that going forward is finite and going backwards is infinite, but the past was at one point the present/future. The infinite chain must ontologically presuppose that it went through this finite counting period). However, Per the scenario, before any one universe there were always an infinite amount of universes before the one you are zooming in on. It's a weird having cake and eating it too. Mechanistically each one was made one at a time, and yet existentially this clearly couldnt explain the existence of the infinite chain. So in what way can we call it the cause of the chain? Simultaneously, how could the literal creation of the universe from a previous one, not be the literal cause of each universe? What else is left to appeal to for the existence of the chain? unless you want to appeal to things outside the chain, but that seems like a contradictory move for those who usually reject needing to appeal to things outside of the immediate cause within each chain, to explain the chain.
I was surprised to see the Thomistic arguments so low...even if you don´t agree with it, it seems to me they are well structured, and they push for interesting reflections on issues
They're really not, their strengths are a sleight of hand, their weaknesses are huge. Their positions are self defeating and literally argue that all effects of God are created, such that God's glory as experienced from the burning bush is created. As if God created his voice, that effect wasn't eternal and identical to God, so it must be created...but that means that one cannot truly know they're experiencing or interacting with God, because all interaction is created. It arguably could create internal issues with the incarnation, I've heard that mentioned but I'm not sure. You have to dig into the material, the contradictions admittedly to Thomas' credit are not surface level but they're there, he made a LOT of extrapolations based on scripture...like...a TON.
Great video as always Joe. I have a question actually do you think that instead of materialism or atheism or even theism as a default position, it should instead be agnosticism.
The coin paradox is not a paradox. While it does have infinite EV in with respect to money, the value to a person in reality does hit diminishing returns as the numbers to up. The value add between 0 and 100k is more than 100k to 201k. One’s answer to the question of how much the game is worth to them should be based on what is the most amount of money they feel comfortable losing.
Irrespective of personal views on particular arguments, this was a very pleasant conversation to listen to. Rubio mentioned towards the end a talk he just gave where he argued "your baysian arguments are all bad." Any chance we could find that anywhere?
I agree that the modal ontological argument earns an A as far as being an interesting argument is concerned, and an F as far persuasiveness is concerned. But one doesn't need to cite the reverse modal ontological argument to see that it is empty of persuasive force. I usually try to avoid using the reverse modal ontological argument because even if it may lead one to suspect there is a problem with the argument, it doesn't necessarily illuminate what the problem is. And I believe arguments over symmetry breakers usually don't lead anywhere. Plantinga defines a MEB (maximally excellent being) to be a being that is omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good, and that has these properties essentially (that is there is no possible world in which it exists and does not have all these properties). He defines a MGB (maximally great being) to be a MEB that exists in all possible worlds (and therefore is a MEB in all possible worlds). Given its assumptions concerning necessity as codified in S5, in the modal ontological argument, to show it is metaphysically possible a MGB exists, we must show that there exists a possible world in which there exists an entity that satisfies the definition of a MGB; that is it must be a MEB that exists and is a MEB in all possible worlds, including the actual world.The argument boils down to, "I don't have to show a MEB exists in the actual world, I only have to show that a being that both exists and satisfies the definition of a MEB in all possible worlds including the actual world exists in some possible world." It's rather like saying, I don't have to show there exists a hotel chain with a hotel in every city within the world. I only have to show that within at least one city in the world there exists a hotel that is part of a chain that has a hotel in every city in the world. And since there are so many cities in the world, surely it's likely that in at least one city somewhere in the world there is a hotel that is part of a chain that has a hotel in every city in the world! Have you examined every city in the world to verify there is no hotel in that city that is part of a chain with a hotel in every city in the world? Have you examined San Francisco, Topeka, Tokyo, Burbank, Kabul, Hama, New York, Los Angeles? There are something like 10,000 cities in the world. Have you examined them all? Surely it's a bold claim to declare there is no city in the world anywhere that has a hotel that's part of a chain with a hotel in every city in the world. And if there is just one city in the world that has a hotel that is part of a chain that has a hotel in every city in the world, then every city in the world has a hotel that is part of a chain that has a hotel in every city of the world, including mine. While valid, this argument is completely empty of persuasive force. In case its of interest, I've made a video on Plantinga's modal ontological argument here: th-cam.com/video/DCv6MhJJryk/w-d-xo.html
Wish the audio on this was better (quality fluctuated a lot, so maybe it's on my end?). The question of rationality of the coin-flip infinite-bet thing really becomes more of a cost-benefit between (a) the financial hardships if you lose vs. (b) the max money you really need to win. By "B" I'm referring to how the value of money doesn't scale -- winning $1,000 is great, but winning $10,000 still improves your life a lot, as does $100k, but by the time you reach $1M, the value of each additional magnitude is actually diminishing and you wouldn't really have a use for $100 trillion. So asking about the rationality of it intersects with reality in a way that totally derails the philosophical intent of the hypothetical. Because yeah, if we fully hypothetical-ize it and say your goal is to win the most money, then sure maybe it's worth betting the maximum real number bet that's possible, if that's how the math works out.
I find the MOA to be F-tier on convincingness, but it has nothing to do with the counter-MOA. After I was unconvinced by it, the counter-MOA solidified my position, but if someone had just come up to me with it, I would have rejected it out of hand regardless. Why? Because by the time they finish the handful of sentences required to convey the argument, I would feel as though a heist had just occurred. Usually with arguments I can follow each step, but the conclusion of the MOA seems to come out of left-field and it feels as if the arguer is trying to proclaim that they are victorious merely by showing me the relevant portions of the game's technical rulebook. Largely, this argument convinces me that something must be amiss with the very concept of a necessary thing, because getting from "it might exist" to "it exists" without any intervening evidence seems absurd. - Sincerely, a layperson
Well put. It seems like an attempt to use rhetorical sleight of hand to just define something into existence. Also, any time perfection is invoked it feels like some inside joke. I'm sure theres all this literature on the subject, I'd be disappointed if there aren't entire journals dedicated to the metaphysics of the perfect slice of pizza or the perfect color.
of course your instinct would be correct. as per usual, in such an example the person presenting the argument would be deliberately conflating epistemological possibility with metaphysical possibility. my comprehension of the universe is flawed and incomplete so epistemologically many things are possible to me even if those things, in fact, literally cannot be the case for reasons i simply am not aware of. to a child anything is possible until they learn enough about the world to narrow down what is possible, but their perception of what was possible never changes what could actually occur. when you respond to the question with "it seems possible that there is a world where god exists" what you really mean is "i don't know if it is impossible for there to be a world where god exists" but modal logic allows an extremely deceptive reading of the first statement as "a necessarily existing god is metaphysically possible" which would then entail the conclusion that god exists in all possible worlds, and the presenter of the argument hopes to exploit that. not necessarily to convince you that god is real, but simply to easily achieve the appearance of winning an argument, which is probably more useful to them in basically every way anyways. really any public-facing mention of the MOA should be prefaced with a warning that the overwhelming majority of apologists who field this argument are doing so specifically to abuse this sleight of hand, while they either have no interest in its actual philosophical merits/demerits or do not understand it themselves.
@MajestyofReason On the other hand What do you think of the biblical passages Colossians 2:8 and Matthew 11:25 that believers and apologists often use to justify their position.
With regards to the fine tuning argument, how does the theist respond to the objection from necessity? i.e. that the physical constants shouldn't be seen as random variables with some distribution which happened to all land on precisely the correct value, but rather that they couldn't have turned out to be any different in any other universes, i.e. they necessarily have the values that they do? (apologies if this was mentioned and I missed it). This is quite a common response I hear and I'm not sure what a good rebuttal to it would be?
Apparently the very first argument discussed "doesn't put a lot of rational pressure"? How is that so, when the universe being created externally is literally one of only three logical options to explain its existence (the others being its popping into being ex nihilo and its being eternal, despite nothing about it investigated so far appearing eternal in nature)? I'm no Theist, but that's such an odd claim to make, that its being one of only three equally strange possibilities doesn't exert significant rational pressure on atheism (in the broad sense of there being no creator of any type)! I'll tell you precisely how much pressure it exerts: about 33%.
By "doesn't put a lot of rational pressure" I think he means that it's quite easy to provide undercutting defeaters to why one can rationally deny both of the premises. I.e. an argument that puts more rational pressure is going to be one where you accept premises already or have weak undercutting defeaters.
why doesn't the infinite reaper problem arise with calculus or physics? If I have to cross 1 meter then I first have to cross 1/2 meters then 1/4 meters etc. With this formulation there can't be a last 'piece of distance' that I have crossed, right? Yet we somehow finish traversing it. What is the relevant difference between the infinite reapers and this? Just to be clear, I understand that one difference is that the reaper problem is about causation but it seems to me that the source of the problem is the same. Namely that we can't finish traversing an infinite so we can't reach the 'first reaper' or the last 'piece of distance'.
An argument that many find intriguing is the concept of infinite past. First thing they must reckon is the maintenance of an infinite being, whether that is the matter of the universe or God himself. The second is the arrival to our current time given the fact that an infinite amount of time would have had to pass before. In either scenario, our human minds are left inept.
As a Christian, by itself that wouldn't be the best explanation but thats a really interesting point ive never thought of. I'm sure you could somehow link this to the contingency argument but there would most likely be a lot of words
Yeah, I've hear Christians argue that the Universe can't have an infinite past before the Big Bang happens, but they often don't realize that God is in the same boat before saying "Let there be light!" They will sometimes argue that God is a being outside of time, but the same assertion can easily be made about whatever "caused" the Big Bang -- e.g. a timeless singularity.
@@EnglishMike It's not that God simply "always existed", its that he exists outside the confines of space and time. He is the uncaused cause because he doesn't require a cause. The universe very obviously works within the confines of space and time and therefore cause and effect, but if God were to be real he would exist not inside the laws but rather he would of made them
@@famenpamendetsroy Perhaps I wasn't as clear as I could have been, but I was conceding that point about God existing outside time and space (i.e. the Universe). All I was saying is that something like the theorized singularity (or maybe something very different) could also have existed outside time and space, and been the uncaused cause of the Universe. Time is just another dimension of the Universe along with three that make up space. If time is a property of the Universe then it too came into being at the start of the Big Bang. Whether there was a cause is unknown. Whether cause even has a meaning in that context is unknown. My point was that claiming God was the uncaused cause has no more basis than claiming the singularity being the uncaused cause. Indeed, one could argue that invoking an infinitely complex being like God only compounds the problem of why there is something rather than nothing, because it requires even more explaining than a finite complex Universe.
@@EnglishMike Well no because there is no way of knowing if time existed before the big bang or not, and our best guess would be to say it did as space time already having those properties would be much more likely than an infinite singularity creating laws and constants. The reason God doesn't compound the problem is because of the way consciousness works. This is a different argument altogether but if consciousness were to truly exist, and we were truly sentient, would it not be logical that the 'theory of everything' would include a conscious or at least an intelligent creator. The fine tuning for this universe is pretty wonderful but that's not the impressive part, the impressive part is the fact we have consciousness and are able to observe and come to conclusion. The only question you could possibly have surrounding Gods existence is Why a conscious deity would exist but the same goes for the universe.
@@nickolashessler314 great question. Yes, one could adopt a humeanism view here - according to such a view, the psychophysical laws are just the axioms in the simplest and most informative systematization of the connections between mental states and physical states. This will make it unsurprising that the psychophysical laws apply to mental and physical states; but it won’t make it unsurprising that the psychophysical laws are harmonious in the sense that they tend to pair mental states with physical states that those mental states rationalize.
@@MajestyofReason Are you aware of the criticism that Andrew Ter Ern Loke has made of Paulogia and Bart Erham's skeptical positions about the resurrection ? He has also criticized other skeptical scholars on his TH-cam channel. It seems that he is very sure of his positions, so it would be interesting to do an analysis of his arguments with the help of other academics. Joe, could you recommend bibliography or specialized academics who argue for and against the resurrection? In these debates I keep asking myself: Even if God exists, does that necessarily make one of humanity's religions true?
@@MajestyofReasonOn the other hand What do you think of the biblical passages Colossians 2:8 and Matthew 11:25 that believers and apologists often use to justify their position.
@@MajestyofReasonJoe. Finally : What do you think about Liz Jackson on Pascal Wager when she saids that if there is a God, theists are more likely to go to heaven ( whatever that means ) than non-theists. It is almost like her arguing that what gives you access to truth, goodness or eternal life (i.e. God) are your mental dispositions towards a series of propositions/dogmas of faith and your rituals within an organized religion along with actions of charity. However, I wonder why the very structure of reality has to be a great test with punishments and rewards? It seems that she is more afraid of punishment (uncritically assumed) and that is one of her reasons (not the only one) for betting on God. However, even if God exists, I maintain that the only thing that matters are actions since I do not conceive how a perfect being determines that it is the mental dispositions of finite and fallible beings that largely determine the access of these beings to the good, truth, beauty etc... And it seems to me that, to many ordinary believers the only thing that matters to them are those mental dispositions towards certain propositions but that they do not really do anything practical to address the real suffering not only of humans but of other forms of life. Liz gives the example of mother Teresa, but it seems to me that in her charity work (and this would be another topic of charity vs. structural political action) there are many ethically and morally questionable things. Just to clarify, Liz mentions these things in her conversation with TJump..
@ don't waste your time with confused apologists who do poor scholarship. read actual NT scholarship. start with dale allison's new book, and follow his references for more
Joe, what do you think of value-oriented moral arguments a la Kant? Let's take the example of truth. Truth in a kantian sense only makes sense, because if everyone lies, then the truth becomes unpractical. Truth, even if it has intrinsic value and normativeness, only compels us rationally in a system where saying the truth gives us a value to say it. Otherwise you'll run into prisoner dilemmas, where it will be more advantageous to lie to save your own skin, if it's not guaranteed others value truth. Now on a hypothesis of indifference, there is no value for objective or subjective morality facts. You need a value-selecting hypothesis, which provides value in truth, goodness. So that gives you evidence for theism. While it's also compatible with theories like karma, it's still evidence against naturalism. Also in some way, it's a harmony problem. The problem of evil brings up that morality is disharmonious to our beliefs. But if you think morality is harmonious to our beliefs, then you have some evidence for God
Doesn't a Humean view of laws also undercut the fine-tuning argument? It seems that fine-tuning assumes a governing view of laws and best systems approach puts fine-tuning in our theories not in the universe itself.
Doesn't Psychophysical Harmony assume two things? 1. That pain and pleasure exist separately from the experience of those things. This seems like a heavy burden, are these abstract properties that we have access to? 2. That we can distinguish between "objective" pain and "perceived" pain? Even if I felt "objective" pleasure when I burned my hand, if my brain interpreted as if it were "objective" pain, how would I know the difference? If there is some sort of objective pain, distinct from our perception of it, why would evolution not select for it? Either we have access to knowledge of it, in which case evolution would select for it under that pressure, or we wouldn't, in which case we have no idea of whether we feel objective pain or not. The argument feels toothless. I feel like the commitments here may actually be huge downsides for some theists and I feel like there are tons of ways to address it. I'm just so unconvinced by this argument.
This point was only addressed very briefly, and it seems obviously insufficient to me so I must be missing something. On the topic of the moral argument, they say that it is just straightforwardly untrue that an atheist can have an objective moral system, and quickly list off some examples of moral frameworks that aren’t grounded in God. But I never understood that as the actual force of the moral argument. It isn’t that it’s impossible for an atheist to come up with an objective moral system that doesn’t rely on God, it’s that we have no reason to actually prefer any one such system over any other. As I mentioned initially, this objection seems so obvious to me that I’m inclined to think I must be misunderstanding something here. Anyone care to enlighten me?
Well naturalistic atheism is rooted in the fact that it would be a biological advantage to have morals that align with the survival of the human race, but then again you could just argue that a tyrannical ruler could suppress millions of people and it wouldn't be morally correct although benefitting the human race as a whole. In all the moral argument for either side is shit house and both sides are better off using something else. If an atheist loses this argument, they'll just say morality is subjective which is neither provable nor unprovable without a serious open mind and the christian would have to be a pretty bad debater to lose but either way it doesn't get any side anywhere unless you're on the defense rather than the offense
Hello CoB, When Rubio talks about the moral argument for God, and they start listing off different foundations, I take it that in this hypothetical moral realism would be true on atheism. This means that at the bare minimum what would be morally good or bad would be independent of someone's opinion on the matter. One of the foundations Rubio mentioned would be preferred over the others because they would be the basis for all the other moral facts as existing, just like it is for the theist morality being God. A examples of such substitutes might be human reason imposing a categorical imperative and deontology that grounds ethics for atheists. It's one possible solution. If you would like to know more about this topic, I would be happy to answer your questions. Alternatively, I would recommend Weilenberg's book: "Robust Ethics: The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Godless Normative Realism" Cheers!
Lol, did he say other scholastics didnt mean PER SE casually series and only Scotus did? EDIT: Also why didnt you actually put the ''Scotus argument'' on the list?
I better see moral argument dead last... AND I DID WOOOOO :D hahaha. But realistically they are all deeply flawed in one way or the other. I would like to see one day everyone acknowledge that the fine-tuning argument was never a good argument, because it contains no epistemological humility. The same can be said for many of these theist arguments. Like psychophysical harmony IS explained by evolution, and to double check what the counter is, the only thing I read on reddit is that "yes but why did the laws of nature allow evolution to create such correlations...?" and I mean at that point you are basically just at a variation of the fine-tuning argument again. There is always this implicit assumption on the theist side - surely it couldn't have happened naturally, right right??? But there is no actual analysis because no one has any clue how universes are formed. We don't even know if that answer is COMPREHENSIBLE but we just assume it is. That is why there is such a serious, fundamental problem in philosophy with respect to all theist arguments. In science you ultimately validate a theory with evidence, but in philosophy, its just "assuming" that our brains have got it correct because it seems logical, and I'm sorry but that's not good enough. If an ant told you all that the universe contained was wood and grass we wouldn't believe the ant. How can we possibly assume our brains are able to comprehend these foundational questions of the universe. Theism cannot provide a satisfactory counter to epistemological humility, it just rams right through it while at the same time claiming we can never know the mind of God, but it totally exists floating outside of the universe in a timeless, spaceless void
It's nothing like the god of the gaps. If we knew exactly the universal events that caused the physical contants and ratios to be the way they are, the question would be shifted a layer down (could those events have been different or anything else?), but still remain. I see it more akind to the contingency argument. I suspect you're an atheist and are heavily understimating these arguments. I suggest you try to steelman them before you attack them.
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@@Igelme What you're describing IS just a God of the gaps. "shifting a layer down" is just filling those gaps. If you restrict God of the gaps to arguments about the "natural world" or physics, then sure, pushing it into metaphysics doesn't *technically* count as God of the gaps, but this is just semantics, and moreover, I dare you to prove what exactly the hard limit between physics and metaphysics even is.
@@TheOtherCaleb It's my favorite evidential argument for God. It's inescapable. Luke Barnes's paper "A Reasonable Little Question" and the Physics to God podcast both do a very good job of laying it out.
@@MajestyofReason Joe. One day you said that if you returned to being a theist you would convert to a universalist Christianity. Now, that would imply that you accept that a man who walked and taught in ancient times was in fact the "son of god" or god himself made flesh and that that part of the Bible is not metaphorical or hyperbolic but literal. But also on the other hand the variable of "universalism" would imply accepting that the theodicy of sin is capable of explaining the reality in which we live and that in fact there are a series of rituals and perhaps beliefs that must be practiced to get closer to god. Now, if we accept that Jesus was god made flesh: Which of his teachings should we follow? All this based on the testimony of people who claim to know what Jesus taught. Should we follow their supposed teachings as recorded in the Catholic, Evangelical, Protestant, Orthodox canon or perhaps their supposed heterodox and heretical teachings that are not found in any of the canons mentioned? Now, were the teachings of Jesus or other supposed divine beings in history extraordinary, superior and correct enough to deduce that they came from a perfect, all-powerful and omniscient being like God? Finally, something that bothers me is how other cultures come to such dissimilar conclusions about the nature of the divine. Are they all wrong? Is the Western Christian canon closer to the truth? As the philosopher from the Absolute Philosophy channel argued when criticizing Bernardo Kastrup's idealism: "I have good arguments to affirm that the fundamental cause of reality is a personal conscience" (paraphrasing). I suppose that from there it is much easier to reach Christianity. I don't know. This is distressing to me. And I have never been particularly religious. If you have time to answer the other 3 questions I asked you, I would be very grateful...
@@Truckszy Rubio explains it at 23:27 but I think one major problem is he doesn't buy into Thomistic metaphysics and thinks it's implausible when there are other alternatives. The argument from motion depends on some sort of Scholastic metaphysics like having a certain view of time/causation, ontological pluralism such as having possibility and actuality being different types of existence, etc.
No mention of Aristotle's argument for God by motion? Where's the transcendental argument? These two are rather quite ironclad, so I am very surprised that these haven't even been mentioned. Also, I think you did a little bit of an injustice with C.S Lewis' moral argument for God. He states that by virtue of there being disagreement between two opposing persons, there exists this presupposed objectivity for morality between both parties; and if they hadn't had a disagreement, then they wouldn't believe in objective morality, since objectivity categorically necessitates disparity with other positions. I personally find the moral argument for God only rhetorically powerful at best, but you get the idea.
If morals are objective there can be no disagreement on morals so either the disagreement has nothing to do with morals or morals are not objective. So either you messed up the explanation or the argument is nonsense.
@@amu7379 Yeah, but it wasn't give justice in its examination. The viewer was only asserted that it's false without providing any reason why, other than it was lengthy to approach. Pretty strange to be concerned with time for when the video is over an hour long. I think a revision of this video is merited, since certain things like with the fine tuning argument, weren't properly examined in light of the impossibility of an infinite regress. Not all, but many of the retorts given for some arguments are simply untrue or underhanded.
@@mattm8870 That's presupposing human understanding to be without error. A person purporting the moral argument for God would state that the deprivation of understanding for one person, doesn't in of itself mean that by their failure of understanding does it invalidate the understanding of the other person who (theoretically speaking), has the correct understanding. In the biggest of senses, the moral argument is essentially the argument by conceptual assertion, and that presupposed objectivity of said assertion shared by both parties in the equation leads to the idea of God, since only God is the only ideal capable of enforcing said proper assertion. I don't expect you to change your mind on this, but in my mind, this is how I would best steelman the tenuous argument for God by morals. I don't really even like the moral argument at all, since if a person really was dedicated on purporting it, they would, in my mind, have to introduce a much wider scope of philosophy with the position of a form of Platonism in order to give credance to the moral argument for God. But, I think at that point, one would instead be more incentivized to use the transcendental argument for God instead. In terms of practicality, the moral argument is only really rhetorically powerful at best.
@C61-y9s I am personally far more in favour of Thomistic arguments than they are, but to be fair it'll take way too long for them to articulate their disagreements with the fundamental Aristotelian metaphysics behind those arguments so I think it's fair they mainly focused on contemporary analytic philosophy.
S tier banana F tier all other arguments the banana argument is so good none can even come close to it as pascal said next to the infinite glory of the banana argument all other theological arguments are reduced to nothing and become an absolute zero amen 🍌
Declaring YHWH to be the supreme ultimate creator of time and space, life and matter, was the final act of one-upmanship that has blinded mankind. God is spirit. As for YHWH, there are many gods yet, for us, there is one god, the Father of the Son of David. When the end comes, he hands the kingdom over to his god and Father, your king who will be raised up for you. Blessed be the kingdom of our Father David that is to come. Focusing on the enmity, between Adam and the Snake (Morning Star) or, Esau and Jacob ('striking' at the heel of Esau), will leave you in its darkness. Striking at the head or heel also means to admire. Grasping at the heel also means to watch over, guard, or protect. Adam, the Son of God Lk 3:38, descended into the Abyss, the Earth covered in darkness, and rises up as the rider Death on the Pale Green horse with all of Hades at his heel admiring and protecting him at the resurrection. I recently heard of the concept of the Bible being 'univocal' in its message. Adam wields the fiery sword. Esau wields his sword. Noah treads the wine press. Joshua enters the promised land fulfilling the expectations of a warrior Messiah and the Messiah bringing peace. Or, after a fiery judgment, then will I create a column of smoke and pillar of fire. In the beginning, darkness covered the Abyss, the Earth. The people were empty, and void of understanding, having become slaves to corruption. Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. YHWH became the Snake. Christ becomes a Worm. Peter walked on water (people), thinking like god, far above human thought. Jesus turned water (people) into wine, treading the wine press of the wrath of the sacrificial lamb. The waters (people) parting for Moses is more familiarly known as the highway in the wasteland. Jesus turned to Peter and said: Get behind me Satan. You are an obstacle (Cornerstone) to me. YHWH and Christ, Satan and Adam, Jacob and Esau, David and the Son of David, Behemoth and Leviathan, are all the 'univocal' same individuals. The Ancient Serpent of Old is transfigured and revealed as the Anceint One of Days on the Mount of Assemby. His people, by virtue of their salvation, will be a kingdom of priests, the Assembly on the Mount. In hope that creation itself will be set free from slavery to corruption, YHWH judged the gods - who neither know nor understand, wandering about in darkness - was made to be sin, and became the Snake (David, the Morning Star) going about in a tent of cloth: thus fulfilling the law. Adam wields the fiery sword, judges the world, is made to be sin - setting up the abomination of desolation in himself, as the temple without one stone left standing upon another - and becomes a Worm, never to return to corruption: thus fulfilling the law. Given the complexity of life and the universe, eternal life seems to be a given. Like any law, corruption of the spirit is a part of the fabric of the universe. Earth is just an old meat market for Dino burgers being used by someone from a society advanced far beyond anything in this universe. Adam is the root and only begotten offspring of Satan, David, the Morning Star who has an everlasting covenant with the Lord working for all his salvation and every desire - to take a seat upon a throne on the Mount of assembly. A kingdom was prepared for you at the foundation of the world - I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, God's dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them (as their God). (Rev 21:2-3 NABO) David rides the donkey and the Bride of David rides the foal of the donkey. On the day of the great slaughter, the light of the Sun (David) will be like that of seven days and the light of the Moon (Bride) will be like that of the Sun. Vegetation was created before the Sun and the Moon: Conlcusion - You're Broccoli. One-up that 😄
It'd be productive for philosophers who are interested in reason to rank order, or perhaps capital "RANK" order arguments for & against the existence of leprechauns, too. I feel rank ordering arguments for & against the existence of leprechauns will be of tremendous utility for reason & humanity alike. Once the arguments for & against the existence of leprechauns are in fact rank ordered, those who believe in the existence of leprechauns will surely order their arguments for the existence of leprechauns in strict accordance, & by doing so directly increase the amount of reason in the universe.
Yeah I noticed that as well. This is the problem when someone who knows nothing about God, has never read the bible or the church fathers, in order to understand what they're dealing with - rank orders these kinds of arguments
The proof of a creator is embedded in every non-sollipsist worldview. You can only prove the existence of self, since anything else can be a delusion. If you believe in the existence of more than self, then youre irrational and cant account for the existence of those other things. But if its true that more than self exist, you or one of those other things have to be the creator of all things, or else you have no basis to define anything objectively and cant call the perception of other things true, just illusory. And you also are left with only codependent objects that dont even account for themselves. If you cant account for something, youre lying.
I don't see a distinction between God and a noncontingent being, it's identifying the same thing in a different manner. A difference without a distinction
@ generally theism commits to more attributes than just being non contingent, such as sentience, being all knowing, all powerful, and all good. The universe could be non contingent and not have any of those attributes, as an example.
@@xravenx24fe generally theism commits to more attributes of God than just non contingency, such as being sentient, all knowing, all powerful, and all good. The universe could be non contingent and not have any of those attributes.
@timcrowe8696 I don't believe that can be true, can you give me a simple argument for that, a noncontingent universe? Logically I don't see how you don't start adding more attributes to the point where it's pragmatically theistic, it's just that theism starts at an arbitrary number of universal attributes based on the tradition. Why wouldn't one just argue that noncontingency alone is metaphysically transcendent in some manner, meaning that it's God? God lacks attributes in many spiritual traditions, so in some hypothetical tradition I could potentially cite, what number of attributes would be considered not theism? Like we'd really just be arguing what God is, because God isn't even necessarily a creator based on many definitions. The pagans and even Mormons today believe the universe is eternal but God or God's exist, how do you make a distinction and a difference? I feel like it's really down to the debate topic and why someone's making a contingency argument that informs whether you can argue that, because some metaphysical traditions can harmonize that idea I think.
@ you can come up with all sorts of definitions, but no one makes progress if we have a moving target. Theism does have a meaning, it’s different from deism and it’s differ from spirituality. Non contingency is just a boundary condition on existence. If you want to call that God no one is stopping you, but you’re not participating in the debate.
The explanations given as it pertains to how to get out of the arguments are insane. I genuinely could not pay the intellectual price tag or have the faith required to believe that. Those are seriously absurd explanations I doubt the two men here are confident in
Better get used to it. You can plant your feet and try and resist, but your resistance, to borrow a phrase, is useless. You might as well have told people to quit downloading movies to save the Blockbuster
@@sordidknifeparty Better get used to it. You can plant your feet and try and resist, but your resistance, to borrow a phrase, is useless. You might as well have told people to quit downloading movies to save the Blockbuster
@@sordidknifepartyBetter get used to it. You can plant your feet and try and resist, but your resistance, to borrow a phrase, is useless. You might as well have told people to quit downloading movies to save the Blockbuster
You dismiss perfectly reasonable arguments against the st. Petersburg paradox. It is a fact that when the ammount of money you have approaches enough to buy the total output of all economies in the world, more money is not only worth less, it is worthless. But the paradox relies on ammounts of money far greater than that having value. If you suppose the economy is outputting infinite value, it is still true that beyond a certain point a given person cannot benefit more from more resources. If you suppose it is possible to benefit from infinite resources, then you are speaking of beings far different from humans, so the fact that humans would not be willing to play this game is irrelevant.
@@esranzarnath4809 The paradox doesn’t rely on that. Money is just a dramatization and filler for utility. Yes, money has diminishing marginal utility. So just replace boundlessly increasing money with boundlessly increasing utility (eg, the number of future happy days of existence you’ll be awarded depending on the coin toss). You’ll get the same sort of paradox here - that you should be willing to sell all of your belongings, and in fact undergo any finite amount of torture, to play this silly game.
@@MajestyofReason That isn't a paradox, you should be willing to play that game. If there is no diminishing return, then the game is worth any finite amount of utility to play. Where is the paradox? Is it just that you call it "silly"?
This is unwatchable. Sorry, but the guest has all the worst talking mannerisms that make it difficult to keep interested. Constant breaks, monotone except the lift at the end of every phrase like he's asking a question, doesn't engage with the audience, makes arguments unnecessarily complicated... He's obviously well read and knows his stuff, but as far as a TH-camr or public speaker he's very much a novice.
I think the psychoysical argument doesn't work is because if there were creatures with bad psychophysical tendencies, they would have died off a long time ago.
@@famenpamendetsroy The argument I was referring to is the psychophysical harmony argument. "It's surprising we avoid pain and are drawn to pleasure for things that are good for us" It's not surprising to me at all.
I struggled with it, many words I just couldn't make out. The bits I could understand were brilliant though so need to dedicate some time to deciphering this one.
You mean like maybe he's Canadian, primarily a writer, not a practiced TH-cam entertainer, and focuses on fairly esoteric technical topics of metaphysics?
@@TheAtheistPerspective868 it is an assumption that is only present because of your confession that the cosmos could not arise from its absence by nothing. However, the impossibility of your proposition is identical to the impossibility of exactly that. If there does not exist an actual core to a chain of causal dependency then there could not exist any point in that chain, such as this very point, the point you perceive. Why ask me to define existent? Existence is a bedrock for possibility that cannot be defined. The fact that all possible definitions would be circular does not entail there is no existence. The desire for a definition of “existence” requires an infinite regression of definitions. If you perceive this yet contest this, you are only fooling yourself.
I don't understand the topic. There is no argument for gods. There are MANY language games that have been/are mistaken as argument. Let's think about Wittgenstein and Popper and Russell's Teapot... Or ponder the psychology that manifests as delusion...
The topic is readily understandable. There are arguments for the possibility of the existence of existential creators we call Gods (reference the entire video above this comment section). "Language games masquerading as argument" is difficult for me to grasp. Are you saying that arguments themselves don't exist and each side just demonstrates rhetorical gymnastics to no real end? Are you saying that there is no persuasive element or bias toward differing ends? There is a difference between pure mathematical probability and intentional kinetic action in the universe.
You don’t understand a lot of things, not just this specific instance. Calling philosophical arguments language games is more delusion than any theist could ever exhibit in their presentation of their arguments.
@@AsceticExile I'm saying there is no argument, no valid inference from propositions, that demonstrates gods. But you admit this with your substitution of, "...the possibility of the existence..." The point of 'god' is its " outside the limits"-ness. "Argument for God" is an obvious contradiction in terms. It's mildly interesting to consider how willing we are to be blind to this fact, or how we can seem to use language without semantic content... But that's not philosophy, reason, or majestic.
@@SFDestiny There are purported such arguments. Those who monger gods make them all the time. If all you're saying is that, in your judgement, such arguments are invalid, then you're saying something almost comically trivial.
@@SFDestiny if you were locked in a room and heard noises from outside the walls, you'd still be able to infer some presence whatsoever outside the walls despite it being completely outside the limits of your reach. This is not an incoherent idea. Arguments for God (in general) never claim to grasp what God is.
I like Daniel already. Not given to hyperbolic language, has a solid grasp of the topics, wears a nice vest, and knows how to explain what's in his mind clearly.
Yep, both Dan and Joe are top shelf thinkers
@@Sugarycaaaaaandygoodness COME TO CANDY MOUNTAIN CHARLIE!
@ Yeah, Charlie!!
You've been leveling up with the quality of your recent videos, we all notice and appreciate your efforts and look forward to what you have in store for us next.
Your guest adds an upward inflection to nearly every sentence he says, like a super intelligent Valley Girl
He’s Canadian most of us are guilty of this upward inflection no clue where this comes from but it’s consistent in all Canadian regional accents.
Valley Girls sound like an unintelligent Daniel Rubio
Reminds me of Chef John from the TH-cam channel "Food Wishes."
Tonal lilt.
Wow! I was surprise to see the modal OA up so high, but I know he's working on a new version. Great video, Joe!
I like Chris de ray version of it
😎 I have my own version and I bet it is more convincing that any of the previous ones. I showed the firm philosophical basis behind these arguments in my book.
Thank you two fine gentlemen for this amazing discussion that I understand and appreciate about 70% of, and know that when I rewatch this in a few years - after getting more educated on the philosophical terms - I will come to understand and appreciate more of what I currently don't understand! Thank you both
Your old chat with trent/alex is how I found you. Glad to see you do pro atheist/theist arguments in the same video.
The one on the problem of evil?
@@jordanh1635 yeah, it didn't go very in depth because it was like a 4 man conversation but Joe did pretty well there anyway.
I love the term “infinity hater” and will be adapting it into my vocabulary with great joy. Thanks for this video!
I love it! I imagine now Kant tier-ranking all the arguments. "This is just another version of the ontological argument. F. Next."
@@helendecruz1947 😂
I'm so glad the banana argument came to light.
Miracles starting at 1:11:11 is a miracle.
I thought going into this that the ranking would be based on the merit of the arguments for proving the existence of God (As was sort of suggested in the the bit on the Kalam). It seemed to me though that Rubio was actually ranking them based on the quality of philosohical discussion the arguments generated within other areas of philosophy. Since Rubio thinks there is no silver bullet argument that shows God is probable, maybe a dedicated section to discuss the rubric of the tierlist might be more helpful next time. Great discussion all around though.
The F for the moral argument is perFect.
@MajestyofReason Are you aware of the criticism that Andrew Ter Ern Loke has made of Paulogia and Bart Erham's skeptical positions about the resurrection ? He has also criticized other skeptical scholars on his TH-cam channel. It seems that he is very sure of his positions, so it would be interesting to do an analysis of his arguments with the help of other academics. Joe, could you recommend bibliography or specialized academics who argue for and against the resurrection? In these debates I keep asking myself: Even if God exists, does that necessarily make one of humanity's religions true?
It’s unfortunate that Paulogia is mentioned among Loke and Ehrman, he is not the skilled thinker that they are
@@andresjimenez1724 i' ve seen them. Not impressed. It shows he is a theologian and apologist and not a biblical scholar
Thank you. Very interesting. I think you guys are much more generous than me, but being more involved in and knowledgeable about the subject, you rate the arguments on such things as style and historical impact, whereas I rate them solely on how convincing the arguments are to me. Also regarding religious experience, I can personally attest (and I know of others as well) that such experiences do not necessarily sustain someone in such beliefs over time. So the theists, I think, would have to address that. New subscriber. Came here from your recent appearance on the Magic Skeptic channel, which I enjoyed very much. Look forward to exploring your channel. 👍
What would your tierlist of the arguments in the video look like?
I am nothing close to the level of a professional philosopher but I would like to say a few things about the Moral Knowledge Argument. (I have yet to read Crummett’s and Swinson’s article but I have heard the argument enough that I feel that I get the gist of the argument).
As I’ve heard it, I am skeptical of the dialectical force of the argument. According to proponents of Moral Debunking Arguments, it seems that the Moral Evolutionary Debunker can make a somewhat plausible story for why it appears that we have moral knowledge. Basically, because our evolutionary ancestors believed that some actions like murder and unfairness were wrong, their descendants would have received these same dispositions to believe these actions were immoral since having these beliefs would increase reproductive fitness. So evolution would produce agents who believed some things were wrong/right and would consequently believe that they had moral knowledge. At this point, both the naturalist and theist have the same datum: “we believe that we have moral knowledge.” If that’s all the theist has to use to run their argument, it should be easy to see why a compotent naturalist would be able to block the argument.
Now I want to say another (hopefully) interesting thing in regard to the Moral Knowledge Argument. I don’t believe that Explanationist/Evolutionary Debunking arguments against Moral Realism actually work. More specifically, I think a Moral Realist can adopt an epistemological theory similar to philosophers like William J Fitzpatrick and Michael Huemer. They hold that (at least) humans have a capacity for generating a priori knowledge that is somewhat realiable. This mechanism that generates our a priori knowledge gives us knowledge of modality, epistemology, morality, mathematics etc. Adopting this epistemological theory is much more plausible than accepting the Evolutionary Debunking argument because if the debunking argument succeeded, then it would also debunk our epistemological beliefs which are required to run the argument in the first place, thereby making the evolutionary debunking argument self defeating. (I could explain why I believe this but it would take up too much space). However, if the naturalist accepts this epistemological theory of a priori knowledge, it seems extremely unlikely that evolution or natural processes alone could give us such a mechanism. This would then increase the probability in theism since God would plausibly want his created agents to be able to understand their environment and be able to act morally and reasonably. I’ll leave a few resources that were extremely helpful in my research.
“Morality and Evolutionary Biology” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
“A Liberal Realist Answer to Debunking Skepticism: The Empirical Case for Realism” Michael Huemer
“Debunking Debunked?
Challenges, Prospects, and the Threat of Self-Defeat” Conrad Bakka dissertation
The last resource listed was by far the most illuminating. It brings together a huge amount of literature on moral debunking arguments and ultimately shows that it is extremely difficult to pull off a successful debunking argument.
Also I forget to mention that those 3 resources at the end are completely FREE so check them out.
rubio's work is great
@MajestyofReason Joe. One day you said that if you returned to being a theist you would convert to a universalist Christianity. Now, that would imply that you accept that a man who walked and taught in ancient times was in fact the "son of god" or god himself made flesh and that that part of the Bible is not metaphorical or hyperbolic but literal.
But also on the other hand the variable of "universalism" would imply accepting that the theodicy of sin is capable of explaining the reality in which we live and that in fact there are a series of rituals and perhaps beliefs that must be practiced to get closer to god.
Now, if we accept that Jesus was god made flesh: Which of his teachings should we follow? All this based on the testimony of people who claim to know what Jesus taught. Should we follow their supposed teachings as recorded in the Catholic, Evangelical, Protestant, Orthodox canon or perhaps their supposed heterodox and heretical teachings that are not found in any of the canons mentioned?
Now, were the teachings of Jesus or other supposed divine beings in history extraordinary, superior and correct enough to deduce that they came from a perfect, all-powerful and omniscient being like God?
Finally, something that bothers me is how other cultures come to such dissimilar conclusions about the nature of the divine. Are they all wrong? Is the Western Christian canon closer to the truth?
As the philosopher from the Absolute Philosophy channel argued when criticizing Bernardo Kastrup's idealism: "I have good arguments to affirm that the fundamental cause of reality is a personal conscience" (paraphrasing). I suppose that from there it is much easier to reach Christianity.
I don't know. This is distressing to me. And I have never been particularly religious. If you have time to answer the other 3 questions I asked you, I would be very grateful...
Maybe start by setting up the framework in how the ranking will work. It's gone over with the Kalam, but it seems like it should have its own section.
As a hardcore naturalist, I don't know how it could get better than personal experience 🤷
You should do a comprehensive video on transcendental arguments; it would be interesting to hear what academic philosophers think about it! :)
Great vid!
The thing about the infinite that gets me is the existential vs mechanistic clash. In every time ordered infinite chain, the person who defends the possibility, is always committed to the idea that the mechanism responsible for the infinite series is never capable of creating it. Take, for example, an infinite chain of universes, each replacing the previous one, one at a time. The infinite chain portrays itself, in mechanism(frankly also in narrative), as laying itself down one universe at a time, but an extrapolation from such an observation would lead one to the conclusion that the whole chain was/could be laid down one at a time by way of addition (People often say the "Weird" thing about infinite time is that going forward is finite and going backwards is infinite, but the past was at one point the present/future. The infinite chain must ontologically presuppose that it went through this finite counting period). However, Per the scenario, before any one universe there were always an infinite amount of universes before the one you are zooming in on. It's a weird having cake and eating it too. Mechanistically each one was made one at a time, and yet existentially this clearly couldnt explain the existence of the infinite chain. So in what way can we call it the cause of the chain? Simultaneously, how could the literal creation of the universe from a previous one, not be the literal cause of each universe? What else is left to appeal to for the existence of the chain? unless you want to appeal to things outside the chain, but that seems like a contradictory move for those who usually reject needing to appeal to things outside of the immediate cause within each chain, to explain the chain.
Why not anything from Plotinus or Proclus (Elements of Theology)?
I was surprised to see the Thomistic arguments so low...even if you don´t agree with it, it seems to me they are well structured, and they push for interesting reflections on issues
They're really not, their strengths are a sleight of hand, their weaknesses are huge. Their positions are self defeating and literally argue that all effects of God are created, such that God's glory as experienced from the burning bush is created. As if God created his voice, that effect wasn't eternal and identical to God, so it must be created...but that means that one cannot truly know they're experiencing or interacting with God, because all interaction is created. It arguably could create internal issues with the incarnation, I've heard that mentioned but I'm not sure. You have to dig into the material, the contradictions admittedly to Thomas' credit are not surface level but they're there, he made a LOT of extrapolations based on scripture...like...a TON.
Great video as always Joe. I have a question actually do you think that instead of materialism or atheism or even theism as a default position, it should instead be agnosticism.
Love this!
As a christian, I appluad your effort, but can yoy make video on the strognwst argument for God existence.
Rubio basically did heavily imply in this video he believes it’s ontological argument
Was that not exactly this video? Or do you want on the strongest argument itself?
@henri8345 strongest as I want to see?
The coin paradox is not a paradox. While it does have infinite EV in with respect to money, the value to a person in reality does hit diminishing returns as the numbers to up. The value add between 0 and 100k is more than 100k to 201k. One’s answer to the question of how much the game is worth to them should be based on what is the most amount of money they feel comfortable losing.
Irrespective of personal views on particular arguments, this was a very pleasant conversation to listen to.
Rubio mentioned towards the end a talk he just gave where he argued "your baysian arguments are all bad." Any chance we could find that anywhere?
I agree that the modal ontological argument earns an A as far as being an interesting argument is concerned, and an F as far persuasiveness is concerned. But one doesn't need to cite the reverse modal ontological argument to see that it is empty of persuasive force. I usually try to avoid using the reverse modal ontological argument because even if it may lead one to suspect there is a problem with the argument, it doesn't necessarily illuminate what the problem is. And I believe arguments over symmetry breakers usually don't lead anywhere.
Plantinga defines a MEB (maximally excellent being) to be a being that is omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good, and that has these properties essentially (that is there is no possible world in which it exists and does not have all these properties). He defines a MGB (maximally great being) to be a MEB that exists in all possible worlds (and therefore is a MEB in all possible worlds).
Given its assumptions concerning necessity as codified in S5, in the modal ontological argument, to show it is metaphysically possible a MGB exists, we must show that there exists a possible world in which there exists an entity that satisfies the definition of a MGB; that is it must be a MEB that exists and is a MEB in all possible worlds, including the actual world.The argument boils down to, "I don't have to show a MEB exists in the actual world, I only have to show that a being that both exists and satisfies the definition of a MEB in all possible worlds including the actual world exists in some possible world."
It's rather like saying, I don't have to show there exists a hotel chain with a hotel in every city within the world. I only have to show that within at least one city in the world there exists a hotel that is part of a chain that has a hotel in every city in the world. And since there are so many cities in the world, surely it's likely that in at least one city somewhere in the world there is a hotel that is part of a chain that has a hotel in every city in the world! Have you examined every city in the world to verify there is no hotel in that city that is part of a chain with a hotel in every city in the world? Have you examined San Francisco, Topeka, Tokyo, Burbank, Kabul, Hama, New York, Los Angeles? There are something like 10,000 cities in the world. Have you examined them all? Surely it's a bold claim to declare there is no city in the world anywhere that has a hotel that's part of a chain with a hotel in every city in the world. And if there is just one city in the world that has a hotel that is part of a chain that has a hotel in every city in the world, then every city in the world has a hotel that is part of a chain that has a hotel in every city of the world, including mine.
While valid, this argument is completely empty of persuasive force. In case its of interest, I've made a video on Plantinga's modal ontological argument here: th-cam.com/video/DCv6MhJJryk/w-d-xo.html
Wish the audio on this was better (quality fluctuated a lot, so maybe it's on my end?).
The question of rationality of the coin-flip infinite-bet thing really becomes more of a cost-benefit between (a) the financial hardships if you lose vs. (b) the max money you really need to win. By "B" I'm referring to how the value of money doesn't scale -- winning $1,000 is great, but winning $10,000 still improves your life a lot, as does $100k, but by the time you reach $1M, the value of each additional magnitude is actually diminishing and you wouldn't really have a use for $100 trillion.
So asking about the rationality of it intersects with reality in a way that totally derails the philosophical intent of the hypothetical.
Because yeah, if we fully hypothetical-ize it and say your goal is to win the most money, then sure maybe it's worth betting the maximum real number bet that's possible, if that's how the math works out.
i've just started watching this, but i gotta ask what is dr.Daniel's postiion? is he an atheist?
1:23:58 it seems that Rubio is a theist. Or agnostic at least.
Around 1:08:00 he says he’s a theist (not atheist).
@@JonathanReibsamenawesome, thanks man
I find the MOA to be F-tier on convincingness, but it has nothing to do with the counter-MOA. After I was unconvinced by it, the counter-MOA solidified my position, but if someone had just come up to me with it, I would have rejected it out of hand regardless. Why? Because by the time they finish the handful of sentences required to convey the argument, I would feel as though a heist had just occurred. Usually with arguments I can follow each step, but the conclusion of the MOA seems to come out of left-field and it feels as if the arguer is trying to proclaim that they are victorious merely by showing me the relevant portions of the game's technical rulebook. Largely, this argument convinces me that something must be amiss with the very concept of a necessary thing, because getting from "it might exist" to "it exists" without any intervening evidence seems absurd.
- Sincerely, a layperson
Well put. It seems like an attempt to use rhetorical sleight of hand to just define something into existence.
Also, any time perfection is invoked it feels like some inside joke. I'm sure theres all this literature on the subject, I'd be disappointed if there aren't entire journals dedicated to the metaphysics of the perfect slice of pizza or the perfect color.
of course your instinct would be correct. as per usual, in such an example the person presenting the argument would be deliberately conflating epistemological possibility with metaphysical possibility. my comprehension of the universe is flawed and incomplete so epistemologically many things are possible to me even if those things, in fact, literally cannot be the case for reasons i simply am not aware of. to a child anything is possible until they learn enough about the world to narrow down what is possible, but their perception of what was possible never changes what could actually occur.
when you respond to the question with "it seems possible that there is a world where god exists" what you really mean is "i don't know if it is impossible for there to be a world where god exists" but modal logic allows an extremely deceptive reading of the first statement as "a necessarily existing god is metaphysically possible" which would then entail the conclusion that god exists in all possible worlds, and the presenter of the argument hopes to exploit that. not necessarily to convince you that god is real, but simply to easily achieve the appearance of winning an argument, which is probably more useful to them in basically every way anyways.
really any public-facing mention of the MOA should be prefaced with a warning that the overwhelming majority of apologists who field this argument are doing so specifically to abuse this sleight of hand, while they either have no interest in its actual philosophical merits/demerits or do not understand it themselves.
@MajestyofReason On the other hand What do you think of the biblical passages Colossians 2:8 and Matthew 11:25 that believers and apologists often use to justify their position.
With regards to the fine tuning argument, how does the theist respond to the objection from necessity? i.e. that the physical constants shouldn't be seen as random variables with some distribution which happened to all land on precisely the correct value, but rather that they couldn't have turned out to be any different in any other universes, i.e. they necessarily have the values that they do? (apologies if this was mentioned and I missed it). This is quite a common response I hear and I'm not sure what a good rebuttal to it would be?
@@henri8345 good question - I respond to this in my common mistakes series video on fine-tuning 🙂
1:13:40 When did this happen!? No information is available on internet about it.
I think they are speaking of Bas van Fraassen
basvanfraassensblog.home.blog/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bas_van_Fraassen
Apparently the very first argument discussed "doesn't put a lot of rational pressure"? How is that so, when the universe being created externally is literally one of only three logical options to explain its existence (the others being its popping into being ex nihilo and its being eternal, despite nothing about it investigated so far appearing eternal in nature)?
I'm no Theist, but that's such an odd claim to make, that its being one of only three equally strange possibilities doesn't exert significant rational pressure on atheism (in the broad sense of there being no creator of any type)!
I'll tell you precisely how much pressure it exerts: about 33%.
By "doesn't put a lot of rational pressure" I think he means that it's quite easy to provide undercutting defeaters to why one can rationally deny both of the premises.
I.e. an argument that puts more rational pressure is going to be one where you accept premises already or have weak undercutting defeaters.
why doesn't the infinite reaper problem arise with calculus or physics? If I have to cross 1 meter then I first have to cross 1/2 meters then 1/4 meters etc. With this formulation there can't be a last 'piece of distance' that I have crossed, right? Yet we somehow finish traversing it. What is the relevant difference between the infinite reapers and this? Just to be clear, I understand that one difference is that the reaper problem is about causation but it seems to me that the source of the problem is the same. Namely that we can't finish traversing an infinite so we can't reach the 'first reaper' or the last 'piece of distance'.
An argument that many find intriguing is the concept of infinite past. First thing they must reckon is the maintenance of an infinite being, whether that is the matter of the universe or God himself. The second is the arrival to our current time given the fact that an infinite amount of time would have had to pass before. In either scenario, our human minds are left inept.
As a Christian, by itself that wouldn't be the best explanation but thats a really interesting point ive never thought of. I'm sure you could somehow link this to the contingency argument but there would most likely be a lot of words
Yeah, I've hear Christians argue that the Universe can't have an infinite past before the Big Bang happens, but they often don't realize that God is in the same boat before saying "Let there be light!"
They will sometimes argue that God is a being outside of time, but the same assertion can easily be made about whatever "caused" the Big Bang -- e.g. a timeless singularity.
@@EnglishMike It's not that God simply "always existed", its that he exists outside the confines of space and time. He is the uncaused cause because he doesn't require a cause. The universe very obviously works within the confines of space and time and therefore cause and effect, but if God were to be real he would exist not inside the laws but rather he would of made them
@@famenpamendetsroy Perhaps I wasn't as clear as I could have been, but I was conceding that point about God existing outside time and space (i.e. the Universe).
All I was saying is that something like the theorized singularity (or maybe something very different) could also have existed outside time and space, and been the uncaused cause of the Universe.
Time is just another dimension of the Universe along with three that make up space. If time is a property of the Universe then it too came into being at the start of the Big Bang. Whether there was a cause is unknown. Whether cause even has a meaning in that context is unknown.
My point was that claiming God was the uncaused cause has no more basis than claiming the singularity being the uncaused cause.
Indeed, one could argue that invoking an infinitely complex being like God only compounds the problem of why there is something rather than nothing, because it requires even more explaining than a finite complex Universe.
@@EnglishMike Well no because there is no way of knowing if time existed before the big bang or not, and our best guess would be to say it did as space time already having those properties would be much more likely than an infinite singularity creating laws and constants. The reason God doesn't compound the problem is because of the way consciousness works. This is a different argument altogether but if consciousness were to truly exist, and we were truly sentient, would it not be logical that the 'theory of everything' would include a conscious or at least an intelligent creator. The fine tuning for this universe is pretty wonderful but that's not the impressive part, the impressive part is the fact we have consciousness and are able to observe and come to conclusion. The only question you could possibly have surrounding Gods existence is Why a conscious deity would exist but the same goes for the universe.
Could someone defend Humeanism about the psychophysical laws as well or is that different somehow?
@@nickolashessler314 great question. Yes, one could adopt a humeanism view here - according to such a view, the psychophysical laws are just the axioms in the simplest and most informative systematization of the connections between mental states and physical states. This will make it unsurprising that the psychophysical laws apply to mental and physical states; but it won’t make it unsurprising that the psychophysical laws are harmonious in the sense that they tend to pair mental states with physical states that those mental states rationalize.
@@MajestyofReason Are you aware of the criticism that Andrew Ter Ern Loke has made of Paulogia and Bart Erham's skeptical positions about the resurrection ? He has also criticized other skeptical scholars on his TH-cam channel. It seems that he is very sure of his positions, so it would be interesting to do an analysis of his arguments with the help of other academics. Joe, could you recommend bibliography or specialized academics who argue for and against the resurrection? In these debates I keep asking myself: Even if God exists, does that necessarily make one of humanity's religions true?
@@MajestyofReasonOn the other hand What do you think of the biblical passages Colossians 2:8 and Matthew 11:25 that believers and apologists often use to justify their position.
@@MajestyofReasonJoe. Finally : What do you think about Liz Jackson on Pascal Wager when she saids that if there is a God, theists are more likely to go to heaven ( whatever that means ) than non-theists. It is almost like her arguing that what gives you access to truth, goodness or eternal life (i.e. God) are your mental dispositions towards a series of propositions/dogmas of faith and your rituals within an organized religion along with actions of charity. However, I wonder why the very structure of reality has to be a great test with punishments and rewards? It seems that she is more afraid of punishment (uncritically assumed) and that is one of her reasons (not the only one) for betting on God. However, even if God exists, I maintain that the only thing that matters are actions since I do not conceive how a perfect being determines that it is the mental dispositions of finite and fallible beings that largely determine the access of these beings to the good, truth, beauty etc... And it seems to me that, to many ordinary believers the only thing that matters to them are those mental dispositions towards certain propositions but that they do not really do anything practical to address the real suffering not only of humans but of other forms of life. Liz gives the example of mother Teresa, but it seems to me that in her charity work (and this would be another topic of charity vs. structural political action) there are many ethically and morally questionable things. Just to clarify, Liz mentions these things in her conversation with TJump..
@ don't waste your time with confused apologists who do poor scholarship. read actual NT scholarship. start with dale allison's new book, and follow his references for more
Joe, what do you think of value-oriented moral arguments a la Kant?
Let's take the example of truth. Truth in a kantian sense only makes sense, because if everyone lies, then the truth becomes unpractical. Truth, even if it has intrinsic value and normativeness, only compels us rationally in a system where saying the truth gives us a value to say it.
Otherwise you'll run into prisoner dilemmas, where it will be more advantageous to lie to save your own skin, if it's not guaranteed others value truth.
Now on a hypothesis of indifference, there is no value for objective or subjective morality facts. You need a value-selecting hypothesis, which provides value in truth, goodness. So that gives you evidence for theism. While it's also compatible with theories like karma, it's still evidence against naturalism.
Also in some way, it's a harmony problem. The problem of evil brings up that morality is disharmonious to our beliefs. But if you think morality is harmonious to our beliefs, then you have some evidence for God
Doesn't a Humean view of laws also undercut the fine-tuning argument? It seems that fine-tuning assumes a governing view of laws and best systems approach puts fine-tuning in our theories not in the universe itself.
I've been hearing the word "spooky" come up in philosophical discussions a lot lately. Is this a new technical term?
Doesn't Psychophysical Harmony assume two things?
1. That pain and pleasure exist separately from the experience of those things. This seems like a heavy burden, are these abstract properties that we have access to?
2. That we can distinguish between "objective" pain and "perceived" pain? Even if I felt "objective" pleasure when I burned my hand, if my brain interpreted as if it were "objective" pain, how would I know the difference?
If there is some sort of objective pain, distinct from our perception of it, why would evolution not select for it? Either we have access to knowledge of it, in which case evolution would select for it under that pressure, or we wouldn't, in which case we have no idea of whether we feel objective pain or not. The argument feels toothless.
I feel like the commitments here may actually be huge downsides for some theists and I feel like there are tons of ways to address it.
I'm just so unconvinced by this argument.
Not to point at the elephant in the room (no pun intended) but why does he keep squinting his eyes? 🤔
Great discussion by both! 👍
This point was only addressed very briefly, and it seems obviously insufficient to me so I must be missing something.
On the topic of the moral argument, they say that it is just straightforwardly untrue that an atheist can have an objective moral system, and quickly list off some examples of moral frameworks that aren’t grounded in God. But I never understood that as the actual force of the moral argument. It isn’t that it’s impossible for an atheist to come up with an objective moral system that doesn’t rely on God, it’s that we have no reason to actually prefer any one such system over any other.
As I mentioned initially, this objection seems so obvious to me that I’m inclined to think I must be misunderstanding something here. Anyone care to enlighten me?
Well naturalistic atheism is rooted in the fact that it would be a biological advantage to have morals that align with the survival of the human race, but then again you could just argue that a tyrannical ruler could suppress millions of people and it wouldn't be morally correct although benefitting the human race as a whole. In all the moral argument for either side is shit house and both sides are better off using something else. If an atheist loses this argument, they'll just say morality is subjective which is neither provable nor unprovable without a serious open mind and the christian would have to be a pretty bad debater to lose but either way it doesn't get any side anywhere unless you're on the defense rather than the offense
Hello CoB,
When Rubio talks about the moral argument for God, and they start listing off different foundations, I take it that in this hypothetical moral realism would be true on atheism. This means that at the bare minimum what would be morally good or bad would be independent of someone's opinion on the matter. One of the foundations Rubio mentioned would be preferred over the others because they would be the basis for all the other moral facts as existing, just like it is for the theist morality being God. A examples of such substitutes might be human reason imposing a categorical imperative and deontology that grounds ethics for atheists. It's one possible solution.
If you would like to know more about this topic, I would be happy to answer your questions. Alternatively, I would recommend Weilenberg's book: "Robust Ethics: The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Godless Normative Realism"
Cheers!
that's not the main argument of old kalam...
So nothing gets S tier either way?
Lol, did he say other scholastics didnt mean PER SE casually series and only Scotus did?
EDIT: Also why didnt you actually put the ''Scotus argument'' on the list?
I better see moral argument dead last...
AND I DID WOOOOO :D hahaha. But realistically they are all deeply flawed in one way or the other. I would like to see one day everyone acknowledge that the fine-tuning argument was never a good argument, because it contains no epistemological humility. The same can be said for many of these theist arguments.
Like psychophysical harmony IS explained by evolution, and to double check what the counter is, the only thing I read on reddit is that "yes but why did the laws of nature allow evolution to create such correlations...?" and I mean at that point you are basically just at a variation of the fine-tuning argument again. There is always this implicit assumption on the theist side - surely it couldn't have happened naturally, right right??? But there is no actual analysis because no one has any clue how universes are formed. We don't even know if that answer is COMPREHENSIBLE but we just assume it is.
That is why there is such a serious, fundamental problem in philosophy with respect to all theist arguments. In science you ultimately validate a theory with evidence, but in philosophy, its just "assuming" that our brains have got it correct because it seems logical, and I'm sorry but that's not good enough. If an ant told you all that the universe contained was wood and grass we wouldn't believe the ant. How can we possibly assume our brains are able to comprehend these foundational questions of the universe. Theism cannot provide a satisfactory counter to epistemological humility, it just rams right through it while at the same time claiming we can never know the mind of God, but it totally exists floating outside of the universe in a timeless, spaceless void
The fine tuning argument is fine
@@TheOtherCaleb It doesn't even have a probability distribution
It's nothing like the god of the gaps. If we knew exactly the universal events that caused the physical contants and ratios to be the way they are, the question would be shifted a layer down (could those events have been different or anything else?), but still remain. I see it more akind to the contingency argument. I suspect you're an atheist and are heavily understimating these arguments. I suggest you try to steelman them before you attack them.
@@Igelme What you're describing IS just a God of the gaps. "shifting a layer down" is just filling those gaps. If you restrict God of the gaps to arguments about the "natural world" or physics, then sure, pushing it into metaphysics doesn't *technically* count as God of the gaps, but this is just semantics, and moreover, I dare you to prove what exactly the hard limit between physics and metaphysics even is.
@@TheOtherCaleb It's my favorite evidential argument for God. It's inescapable. Luke Barnes's paper "A Reasonable Little Question" and the Physics to God podcast both do a very good job of laying it out.
27:39 How are they different distinctions? What did he mean by this.
Wait, Joe are you in Toronto? Or is Daniel at Princeton?
we were both presenting at a conference at VCU :)
@@MajestyofReason Joe. One day you said that if you returned to being a theist you would convert to a universalist Christianity. Now, that would imply that you accept that a man who walked and taught in ancient times was in fact the "son of god" or god himself made flesh and that that part of the Bible is not metaphorical or hyperbolic but literal.
But also on the other hand the variable of "universalism" would imply accepting that the theodicy of sin is capable of explaining the reality in which we live and that in fact there are a series of rituals and perhaps beliefs that must be practiced to get closer to god.
Now, if we accept that Jesus was god made flesh: Which of his teachings should we follow? All this based on the testimony of people who claim to know what Jesus taught. Should we follow their supposed teachings as recorded in the Catholic, Evangelical, Protestant, Orthodox canon or perhaps their supposed heterodox and heretical teachings that are not found in any of the canons mentioned?
Now, were the teachings of Jesus or other supposed divine beings in history extraordinary, superior and correct enough to deduce that they came from a perfect, all-powerful and omniscient being like God?
Finally, something that bothers me is how other cultures come to such dissimilar conclusions about the nature of the divine. Are they all wrong? Is the Western Christian canon closer to the truth?
As the philosopher from the Absolute Philosophy channel argued when criticizing Bernardo Kastrup's idealism: "I have good arguments to affirm that the fundamental cause of reality is a personal conscience" (paraphrasing). I suppose that from there it is much easier to reach Christianity.
I don't know. This is distressing to me. And I have never been particularly religious. If you have time to answer the other 3 questions I asked you, I would be very grateful...
@@MajestyofReason How do we get Daniel to do more videos. He doesn't have much content out there.
where is the first motion? the best argument at all
I think Rubio ranked the Thomistic arguments in D tier, which would include the argument from motion of Aquinas.
@@jordanh1635 can u tell me why?
@@Truckszy Rubio explains it at 23:27 but I think one major problem is he doesn't buy into Thomistic metaphysics and thinks it's implausible when there are other alternatives. The argument from motion depends on some sort of Scholastic metaphysics like having a certain view of time/causation, ontological pluralism such as having possibility and actuality being different types of existence, etc.
No mention of Aristotle's argument for God by motion? Where's the transcendental argument? These two are rather quite ironclad, so I am very surprised that these haven't even been mentioned.
Also, I think you did a little bit of an injustice with C.S Lewis' moral argument for God. He states that by virtue of there being disagreement between two opposing persons, there exists this presupposed objectivity for morality between both parties; and if they hadn't had a disagreement, then they wouldn't believe in objective morality, since objectivity categorically necessitates disparity with other positions. I personally find the moral argument for God only rhetorically powerful at best, but you get the idea.
Aristotle's argument is included in Thomistic cosmological arguments.
If morals are objective there can be no disagreement on morals so either the disagreement has nothing to do with morals or morals are not objective. So either you messed up the explanation or the argument is nonsense.
@@amu7379 Yeah, but it wasn't give justice in its examination. The viewer was only asserted that it's false without providing any reason why, other than it was lengthy to approach. Pretty strange to be concerned with time for when the video is over an hour long. I think a revision of this video is merited, since certain things like with the fine tuning argument, weren't properly examined in light of the impossibility of an infinite regress. Not all, but many of the retorts given for some arguments are simply untrue or underhanded.
@@mattm8870 That's presupposing human understanding to be without error. A person purporting the moral argument for God would state that the deprivation of understanding for one person, doesn't in of itself mean that by their failure of understanding does it invalidate the understanding of the other person who (theoretically speaking), has the correct understanding. In the biggest of senses, the moral argument is essentially the argument by conceptual assertion, and that presupposed objectivity of said assertion shared by both parties in the equation leads to the idea of God, since only God is the only ideal capable of enforcing said proper assertion. I don't expect you to change your mind on this, but in my mind, this is how I would best steelman the tenuous argument for God by morals.
I don't really even like the moral argument at all, since if a person really was dedicated on purporting it, they would, in my mind, have to introduce a much wider scope of philosophy with the position of a form of Platonism in order to give credance to the moral argument for God. But, I think at that point, one would instead be more incentivized to use the transcendental argument for God instead. In terms of practicality, the moral argument is only really rhetorically powerful at best.
@C61-y9s I am personally far more in favour of Thomistic arguments than they are, but to be fair it'll take way too long for them to articulate their disagreements with the fundamental Aristotelian metaphysics behind those arguments so I think it's fair they mainly focused on contemporary analytic philosophy.
S tier banana
F tier all other arguments the banana argument is so good none can even come close to it as pascal said next to the infinite glory of the banana argument all other theological arguments are reduced to nothing and become an absolute zero amen 🍌
Declaring YHWH to be the supreme ultimate creator of time and space, life and matter, was the final act of one-upmanship that has blinded mankind. God is spirit. As for YHWH, there are many gods yet, for us, there is one god, the Father of the Son of David. When the end comes, he hands the kingdom over to his god and Father, your king who will be raised up for you. Blessed be the kingdom of our Father David that is to come.
Focusing on the enmity, between Adam and the Snake (Morning Star) or, Esau and Jacob ('striking' at the heel of Esau), will leave you in its darkness. Striking at the head or heel also means to admire. Grasping at the heel also means to watch over, guard, or protect. Adam, the Son of God Lk 3:38, descended into the Abyss, the Earth covered in darkness, and rises up as the rider Death on the Pale Green horse with all of Hades at his heel admiring and protecting him at the resurrection.
I recently heard of the concept of the Bible being 'univocal' in its message. Adam wields the fiery sword. Esau wields his sword. Noah treads the wine press. Joshua enters the promised land fulfilling the expectations of a warrior Messiah and the Messiah bringing peace. Or, after a fiery judgment, then will I create a column of smoke and pillar of fire.
In the beginning, darkness covered the Abyss, the Earth. The people were empty, and void of understanding, having become slaves to corruption. Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. YHWH became the Snake. Christ becomes a Worm. Peter walked on water (people), thinking like god, far above human thought. Jesus turned water (people) into wine, treading the wine press of the wrath of the sacrificial lamb. The waters (people) parting for Moses is more familiarly known as the highway in the wasteland.
Jesus turned to Peter and said: Get behind me Satan. You are an obstacle (Cornerstone) to me. YHWH and Christ, Satan and Adam, Jacob and Esau, David and the Son of David, Behemoth and Leviathan, are all the 'univocal' same individuals. The Ancient Serpent of Old is transfigured and revealed as the Anceint One of Days on the Mount of Assemby. His people, by virtue of their salvation, will be a kingdom of priests, the Assembly on the Mount.
In hope that creation itself will be set free from slavery to corruption, YHWH judged the gods - who neither know nor understand, wandering about in darkness - was made to be sin, and became the Snake (David, the Morning Star) going about in a tent of cloth: thus fulfilling the law. Adam wields the fiery sword, judges the world, is made to be sin - setting up the abomination of desolation in himself, as the temple without one stone left standing upon another - and becomes a Worm, never to return to corruption: thus fulfilling the law.
Given the complexity of life and the universe, eternal life seems to be a given. Like any law, corruption of the spirit is a part of the fabric of the universe. Earth is just an old meat market for Dino burgers being used by someone from a society advanced far beyond anything in this universe. Adam is the root and only begotten offspring of Satan, David, the Morning Star who has an everlasting covenant with the Lord working for all his salvation and every desire - to take a seat upon a throne on the Mount of assembly.
A kingdom was prepared for you at the foundation of the world - I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, God's dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them (as their God). (Rev 21:2-3 NABO)
David rides the donkey and the Bride of David rides the foal of the donkey. On the day of the great slaughter, the light of the Sun (David) will be like that of seven days and the light of the Moon (Bride) will be like that of the Sun.
Vegetation was created before the Sun and the Moon: Conlcusion - You're Broccoli. One-up that 😄
It'd be productive for philosophers who are interested in reason to rank order, or perhaps capital "RANK" order arguments for & against the existence of leprechauns, too. I feel rank ordering arguments for & against the existence of leprechauns will be of tremendous utility for reason & humanity alike. Once the arguments for & against the existence of leprechauns are in fact rank ordered, those who believe in the existence of leprechauns will surely order their arguments for the existence of leprechauns in strict accordance, & by doing so directly increase the amount of reason in the universe.
Yeah I noticed that as well. This is the problem when someone who knows nothing about God, has never read the bible or the church fathers, in order to understand what they're dealing with - rank orders these kinds of arguments
The proof of a creator is embedded in every non-sollipsist worldview. You can only prove the existence of self, since anything else can be a delusion. If you believe in the existence of more than self, then youre irrational and cant account for the existence of those other things. But if its true that more than self exist, you or one of those other things have to be the creator of all things, or else you have no basis to define anything objectively and cant call the perception of other things true, just illusory. And you also are left with only codependent objects that dont even account for themselves. If you cant account for something, youre lying.
Not sure how you can give contingency a B when an atheist can concede all the points and not believe in a god, only a non contingent thing existing.
I don't see a distinction between God and a noncontingent being, it's identifying the same thing in a different manner. A difference without a distinction
@ generally theism commits to more attributes than just being non contingent, such as sentience, being all knowing, all powerful, and all good. The universe could be non contingent and not have any of those attributes, as an example.
@@xravenx24fe generally theism commits to more attributes of God than just non contingency, such as being sentient, all knowing, all powerful, and all good. The universe could be non contingent and not have any of those attributes.
@timcrowe8696 I don't believe that can be true, can you give me a simple argument for that, a noncontingent universe? Logically I don't see how you don't start adding more attributes to the point where it's pragmatically theistic, it's just that theism starts at an arbitrary number of universal attributes based on the tradition. Why wouldn't one just argue that noncontingency alone is metaphysically transcendent in some manner, meaning that it's God? God lacks attributes in many spiritual traditions, so in some hypothetical tradition I could potentially cite, what number of attributes would be considered not theism? Like we'd really just be arguing what God is, because God isn't even necessarily a creator based on many definitions. The pagans and even Mormons today believe the universe is eternal but God or God's exist, how do you make a distinction and a difference? I feel like it's really down to the debate topic and why someone's making a contingency argument that informs whether you can argue that, because some metaphysical traditions can harmonize that idea I think.
@ you can come up with all sorts of definitions, but no one makes progress if we have a moving target. Theism does have a meaning, it’s different from deism and it’s differ from spirituality. Non contingency is just a boundary condition on existence. If you want to call that God no one is stopping you, but you’re not participating in the debate.
I think that says more about you than the topic at hand
The explanations given as it pertains to how to get out of the arguments are insane. I genuinely could not pay the intellectual price tag or have the faith required to believe that. Those are seriously absurd explanations I doubt the two men here are confident in
Is that Walter Sobchak?
People, please stop using AI generated images!
Better get used to it. You can plant your feet and try and resist, but your resistance, to borrow a phrase, is useless. You might as well have told people to quit downloading movies to save the Blockbuster
@@sordidknifeparty Better get used to it. You can plant your feet and try and resist, but your resistance, to borrow a phrase, is useless. You might as well have told people to quit downloading movies to save the Blockbuster
@@bottlebeardwhat?
@@sordidknifepartyBetter get used to it. You can plant your feet and try and resist, but your resistance, to borrow a phrase, is useless. You might as well have told people to quit downloading movies to save the Blockbuster
This guy reminds me of Anatoly Wasserman, our russian cult incel
What about argument from reason?
👏🙂
I think the inflection at the end of literally every sentence is S tier proof God is a comedian.
Sorry but this is way too hard to follow
Of course it's the Hebrew god.
is there somewhere in the video where someone says "God is Logic" ?
You dismiss perfectly reasonable arguments against the st. Petersburg paradox. It is a fact that when the ammount of money you have approaches enough to buy the total output of all economies in the world, more money is not only worth less, it is worthless. But the paradox relies on ammounts of money far greater than that having value. If you suppose the economy is outputting infinite value, it is still true that beyond a certain point a given person cannot benefit more from more resources. If you suppose it is possible to benefit from infinite resources, then you are speaking of beings far different from humans, so the fact that humans would not be willing to play this game is irrelevant.
@@esranzarnath4809 The paradox doesn’t rely on that. Money is just a dramatization and filler for utility. Yes, money has diminishing marginal utility. So just replace boundlessly increasing money with boundlessly increasing utility (eg, the number of future happy days of existence you’ll be awarded depending on the coin toss). You’ll get the same sort of paradox here - that you should be willing to sell all of your belongings, and in fact undergo any finite amount of torture, to play this silly game.
@@MajestyofReason That isn't a paradox, you should be willing to play that game. If there is no diminishing return, then the game is worth any finite amount of utility to play. Where is the paradox? Is it just that you call it "silly"?
This is unwatchable. Sorry, but the guest has all the worst talking mannerisms that make it difficult to keep interested. Constant breaks, monotone except the lift at the end of every phrase like he's asking a question, doesn't engage with the audience, makes arguments unnecessarily complicated... He's obviously well read and knows his stuff, but as far as a TH-camr or public speaker he's very much a novice.
I think the psychoysical argument doesn't work is because if there were creatures with bad psychophysical tendencies, they would have died off a long time ago.
Imagine a form of a philosophical zombie whose qualia are all just various assortments of black and white static.
Humans as a whole all have bad philosophical tendencies and we all have good tendencies as well. The moral argument is terrible for both sides
@@famenpamendetsroy The argument I was referring to is the psychophysical harmony argument. "It's surprising we avoid pain and are drawn to pleasure for things that are good for us" It's not surprising to me at all.
@@gabrielteo3636 yea it goes in tow with the moral argument and often just ends in a dead end for both sides
Is this sponsored by Starbucks?
This man talks completely artless. No structure or meter. It almost feels like he’s speaking a foreign language.
Dude for real like it’s a monotone run on sentence
I struggled with it, many words I just couldn't make out. The bits I could understand were brilliant though so need to dedicate some time to deciphering this one.
You mean like maybe he's Canadian, primarily a writer, not a practiced TH-cam entertainer, and focuses on fairly esoteric technical topics of metaphysics?
There is no thing that begins to exist . P1 is false.
lol what
@JohnSmith-bq6nf there is only one existent and it is eternal
@@TheAtheistPerspective868 this is just a stupid assumption
@@chrishemswortth2669 it's not an assumption. what makes it stupid? Define what an existent is
@@TheAtheistPerspective868 it is an assumption that is only present because of your confession that the cosmos could not arise from its absence by nothing.
However, the impossibility of your proposition is identical to the impossibility of exactly that.
If there does not exist an actual core to a chain of causal dependency then there could not exist any point in that chain, such as this very point, the point you perceive.
Why ask me to define existent? Existence is a bedrock for possibility that cannot be defined. The fact that all possible definitions would be circular does not entail there is no existence. The desire for a definition of “existence” requires an infinite regression of definitions. If you perceive this yet contest this, you are only fooling yourself.
I don't understand the topic. There is no argument for gods. There are MANY language games that have been/are mistaken as argument. Let's think about Wittgenstein and Popper and Russell's Teapot... Or ponder the psychology that manifests as delusion...
The topic is readily understandable. There are arguments for the possibility of the existence of existential creators we call Gods (reference the entire video above this comment section). "Language games masquerading as argument" is difficult for me to grasp. Are you saying that arguments themselves don't exist and each side just demonstrates rhetorical gymnastics to no real end? Are you saying that there is no persuasive element or bias toward differing ends? There is a difference between pure mathematical probability and intentional kinetic action in the universe.
You don’t understand a lot of things, not just this specific instance. Calling philosophical arguments language games is more delusion than any theist could ever exhibit in their presentation of their arguments.
@@AsceticExile I'm saying there is no argument, no valid inference from propositions, that demonstrates gods. But you admit this with your substitution of, "...the possibility of the existence..." The point of 'god' is its " outside the limits"-ness. "Argument for God" is an obvious contradiction in terms. It's mildly interesting to consider how willing we are to be blind to this fact, or how we can seem to use language without semantic content... But that's not philosophy, reason, or majestic.
@@SFDestiny There are purported such arguments. Those who monger gods make them all the time. If all you're saying is that, in your judgement, such arguments are invalid, then you're saying something almost comically trivial.
@@SFDestiny if you were locked in a room and heard noises from outside the walls, you'd still be able to infer some presence whatsoever outside the walls despite it being completely outside the limits of your reach. This is not an incoherent idea. Arguments for God (in general) never claim to grasp what God is.