I was not expecting the animism turn. Very cool! I personally would attack premise 1 on the definition of God, nature spirits, or independent agent. To avoid the Inflation of Conflict Fallacy, I would consider whether different definitions results in a less-godlike being, from less powerful to more powerful. For the pumpkin bread analogy, this would be like arguing about how much pumpkin goes into the recipe. Natural spirits would be less powerful than a monotheistic God, serving more as synonyms for the concepts they represent. To the extreme, a God that sets up the universe and doesn't interact with it after would be pragmatically no different from having no God at all. So, I find it interesting that a stronger argument for supernatural agency had to tie the agents to nature, weakening their agency.
The animism twist is what pushed me to make the video in the first place. I really like your response to the inflation of conflict fallacy response. You are right that when you look at a lot of philosophical arguments for the existence of God, the conclusion is often for something like "a first cause" or an "unmoved mover" rather than the gods you get a fleshed out religion (some type of personal God who influenced sacred texts, has prophets, etc.). In this case, everyone might agree that there is a "god" but the content of that belief seems pretty sparse. And, I think you could argue that pragmatically it might even be an empty concept! Cool response!
The inflation of conflict response seems to beg the question, saying the parties agree about the subject matter despite disagreements presupposes that there is a single subject matter/object of belief, which is what the common consent argument is trying to establish.
I think the response makes sense provided the theist sets the level of precision. If the common belief is precise, e.g., there is one true God and God has exactly these 50 properties, then there isn't much agreement and the argument doesn't work. If the common belief is vague, e.g., some higher power exists and let's leave it open what properties this higher power has, then the response makes more sense. With that said, it waters the belief down since we are not talking about a particular religion anymore.
What is a "god"? What things make a thing a "god"? When defining god - does the defining part come first? Is there any emperical evidence and/or repeatable test we can subject "god" to? If not, why not?
There are lots of definitions of "god". All of them might not work here. I agree that if I were to approach this issue in terms of trying to figure out "god", I would start by giving a bunch of definition. But, that would take at least an hour and I wanted to focus on the argument from common consent. The thought at the beginning of the video is that "God" is some "higher being" (more powerful, more intelligent) than human beings both individually and collectively and at least partially responsible for the way the world is (creator). You could of course add other properties, e.g., omnitemporal or omnipresent (or transcendent), etc., etc.
I think your last question is really interesting. I don't know if there are any studies that ask people who say they believe in God to list off the qualities. That would be interesting.
1:31 what version of what god? The word god might be used, but the ideas are wildly different, meaning that no, this is still not a true premise. Why would one think that the god belef is the "most imporant" one, and what does it being imporant have to do with anything? p3 is appeal to majority so- that's out. This argument has promice? Well, if you ignore all the problems in it! :D Does this get any better? O_o; oh no it gets worse... it gets so much worse...
I thought about talking about this premise, but ignored it for the sake of time. I think the evidence in favor of it is that people "say" that their belief in God is one of the most important belief in their lives and they modify their lives and build their ethical systems based on it (or it at least plays an important role in how they say others should be treated). I think in terms of criticism, you could say that it isn't "important" for "most" people, but rather they simply pay it lip service. The reason it is in the argument is that its "importance" is supposed to supposed to support the idea that believers are not likely to be easily wrong. If a belief is important and a lot of people believe it, then the presumption is that they believe it for powerful reasons. If it isn't important, then they may believe it for silly reasons (or due to chance). You are right. The general purpose of the video was to try to keep an open mind about whether the argument has any promise when it looks (at first glance) to be terrible. The conclusion of the video is that this argument still looks bad even after we try to save it. But, this is not to say that another version of the argument might not hold more promise!
Still take issue with P4 of the final argument. You touched it briefly. People evolved socially and can therefore easily model behaviour of systems by anthromorphising. People form their worldview under the care of elders and parents. A paternal safety net. The event of our death is anxiety invoking and filled with unknowns. We independently form beliefs that alleviate mortal dread and give it the shape of a paternal personality (we have used this model as children all the time for our parents). If you behave well, you’ll get a reward. Where have I heard that before?
Let me see if I understand what you are saying: (1) we fear death, other assorted dangers, and the unknown, (2) we over-anthropomorphize things (give it agency when it lacks agency), and (3) we posit some entity ("God") as something that will protect us from danger, and given our tendency to over-anthropomorphize, we take that entity to have a person nature (rather than some blind force).
I was not expecting the animism turn. Very cool!
I personally would attack premise 1 on the definition of God, nature spirits, or independent agent. To avoid the Inflation of Conflict Fallacy, I would consider whether different definitions results in a less-godlike being, from less powerful to more powerful. For the pumpkin bread analogy, this would be like arguing about how much pumpkin goes into the recipe.
Natural spirits would be less powerful than a monotheistic God, serving more as synonyms for the concepts they represent. To the extreme, a God that sets up the universe and doesn't interact with it after would be pragmatically no different from having no God at all.
So, I find it interesting that a stronger argument for supernatural agency had to tie the agents to nature, weakening their agency.
The animism twist is what pushed me to make the video in the first place. I really like your response to the inflation of conflict fallacy response. You are right that when you look at a lot of philosophical arguments for the existence of God, the conclusion is often for something like "a first cause" or an "unmoved mover" rather than the gods you get a fleshed out religion (some type of personal God who influenced sacred texts, has prophets, etc.). In this case, everyone might agree that there is a "god" but the content of that belief seems pretty sparse. And, I think you could argue that pragmatically it might even be an empty concept! Cool response!
The inflation of conflict response seems to beg the question, saying the parties agree about the subject matter despite disagreements presupposes that there is a single subject matter/object of belief, which is what the common consent argument is trying to establish.
I think the response makes sense provided the theist sets the level of precision. If the common belief is precise, e.g., there is one true God and God has exactly these 50 properties, then there isn't much agreement and the argument doesn't work. If the common belief is vague, e.g., some higher power exists and let's leave it open what properties this higher power has, then the response makes more sense.
With that said, it waters the belief down since we are not talking about a particular religion anymore.
What is a "god"?
What things make a thing a "god"?
When defining god - does the defining part come first?
Is there any emperical evidence and/or repeatable test we can subject "god" to? If not, why not?
There are lots of definitions of "god". All of them might not work here. I agree that if I were to approach this issue in terms of trying to figure out "god", I would start by giving a bunch of definition. But, that would take at least an hour and I wanted to focus on the argument from common consent. The thought at the beginning of the video is that "God" is some "higher being" (more powerful, more intelligent) than human beings both individually and collectively and at least partially responsible for the way the world is (creator). You could of course add other properties, e.g., omnitemporal or omnipresent (or transcendent), etc., etc.
I think your last question is really interesting. I don't know if there are any studies that ask people who say they believe in God to list off the qualities. That would be interesting.
1:31 what version of what god? The word god might be used, but the ideas are wildly different, meaning that no, this is still not a true premise.
Why would one think that the god belef is the "most imporant" one, and what does it being imporant have to do with anything?
p3 is appeal to majority so- that's out.
This argument has promice? Well, if you ignore all the problems in it! :D
Does this get any better? O_o;
oh no it gets worse... it gets so much worse...
So... the argument is broken. I don't see how you could save it.
Or why you would even try.
I thought about talking about this premise, but ignored it for the sake of time. I think the evidence in favor of it is that people "say" that their belief in God is one of the most important belief in their lives and they modify their lives and build their ethical systems based on it (or it at least plays an important role in how they say others should be treated). I think in terms of criticism, you could say that it isn't "important" for "most" people, but rather they simply pay it lip service.
The reason it is in the argument is that its "importance" is supposed to supposed to support the idea that believers are not likely to be easily wrong. If a belief is important and a lot of people believe it, then the presumption is that they believe it for powerful reasons. If it isn't important, then they may believe it for silly reasons (or due to chance).
You are right. The general purpose of the video was to try to keep an open mind about whether the argument has any promise when it looks (at first glance) to be terrible. The conclusion of the video is that this argument still looks bad even after we try to save it. But, this is not to say that another version of the argument might not hold more promise!
@@LogicPhilosophy okay - look forward to part 2 when you fix it or smash it to bits.
Still take issue with P4 of the final argument. You touched it briefly.
People evolved socially and can therefore easily model behaviour of systems by anthromorphising.
People form their worldview under the care of elders and parents. A paternal safety net.
The event of our death is anxiety invoking and filled with unknowns.
We independently form beliefs that alleviate mortal dread and give it the shape of a paternal personality (we have used this model as children all the time for our parents).
If you behave well, you’ll get a reward. Where have I heard that before?
Let me see if I understand what you are saying: (1) we fear death, other assorted dangers, and the unknown, (2) we over-anthropomorphize things (give it agency when it lacks agency), and (3) we posit some entity ("God") as something that will protect us from danger, and given our tendency to over-anthropomorphize, we take that entity to have a person nature (rather than some blind force).
քʀօʍօֆʍ
Always clear and compelling explanations from this channel. Great video!
Aye! Thanks! Yes, this one took a while to do, even though (I think) the argument is pretty straightforward