rstevewarmorycom its wishful thinking to believe that reality and the debate between theism and atheism is that black and white. You only have to look at the great philosopher Anthony Flew who rejected atheism after 50 yrs of developing the best arguments against theism. I think that a lot of people are not aware of, or choose to ignore, the political, cultural and historical context required to give a truthful account of the value and validity of religious experience and belief. Whilst there are sophisticated epistemological and ontological arguments from both sides of the argument there is equally a lot of bigoted misinformation out there on both sides that people choose to take as factual. Sadly, history shows us that there have been examples of great evil and stupidity on both sides of the argument. Hence the creation of things such as the atomic bomb by mad scientists and communist atheist Russia under which millions died and terrorism by religious fanatics, crusades etc. Should we judge the atheist belief system and all atheists by the actions of atheist Russia.. Off course not. We will continue to nake the same mistakes as our ancestors unless we respect each other and are able to have honest debate and informed choice and freedom. People have the right to choose a belief system that they feel gives them meaning purpose and a sense of joy in life as long as it does not impinge on other peoples human rights We need more understanding and humility in the world not more ignorance, bigotry and prejudice.
@@georgedoyle7971 Flew became dotty or senile. It was sad to see all his previous arguments vanish in the disorder. His turn of stance didn't deal with any of his previous arguments from when he was younger, it was as though he had forgotten them altogether. This is what is sad. -- Religion is all made-up shit. It is as though we had invented a pleasing fable, but then we forgot that it was we who had invented it, and began asking one another whether it was real and where it had come from. And we still have all the beauty and humility and understanding in the whole world even if we had never invented that fable. You're wrong, people do NOT "choose" their belief system, instead they are threatened into it. And we make all meaning for our lives, no imaginary fable actually does that. Russia was demonized by the western capitalists as the touch stone of their brainwashing of youth and their propaganda in the west. In point of fact, according to poll, most Russians today long for most of the benefits of that society that they have lost. And it was never atheism that Russians dispensed with, as many as 55% of them LIKE atheism and are atheist to this day. Only the old and ignorant, uneducated and potty have lamely revived the orthodox church. Atheist Europe now does not suffer from any lack of tolerance, but perhaps far too much of it.
@@rstevewarmorycom You arent going to win many hearts and minds by being so abrasive. I mostly agree with you but you are being a massive dick about it
Sir, Several years ago a kid of mine caused a car accident that took his life and the life of a young lady in another car. I was completely and utterly devastated. I fell into a deep depression. That depression worried my wife intensely. She sought out help for me. I went to a camp. And in that camp were some very smart theological counselors who where psychiatrist as well. The whole time I was there I really couldn’t sleep very well. One night I quietly got up not to disturb anyone else and walked outside. I thought I had walked far enough away from the camp that no one would hear me. But one of the counselors heard me crying. He asked what troubled me. I told him and in the dark I could see him nodding his head understandingly. His answer shook me to my core and still does to this very day. “Why do you assume he was your child, alone? You and your wife made the physical body, now I ask you, where did his soul come from? It takes three to make thee.” Then I asked him not really expecting an answer, “He took another life and I am worried about the soul that God made.” His answer came without hesitation, “Who are you to question how, why or when anyone is called home.” By the time the sun come up I was on my way to recovery. Some may call this a incomplete answer. To which I would say, perhaps. But it was enough for me then and it still is enough for me now. Sincerely, Robert
"Who are you to question...?" We are thinking and feeling beings. It's what we do. Missing people we love or just enjoy is a strong feeling and something that comes naturally for most. Why do people argue in favor of some cosmic overlord who has no needs or worries as we do? It's ludicrous.
I find it sad to see so many angry comments that seem to purely dismiss this man, and anything he has to say. I do know that he is widely respected among professors of philosophy, and not just among those philosophers that happen to have a belief in God. It seems that a more sensible form of argumentation would be to list a point you disagree with, and then explain why. It seems there is just a lot of unreasonable dismissal and derogatory name calling happening. It is very sad to see because it makes the discussion go absolutely nowhere.
sevven1 So you've read his work? Have you read Warranted Christian Belief? Please give me a careful examination of his concept of "warrant" and why you think it isn't valuable.
Voyaging123 I couldn't care less how well written his book is or how eloquent his arguments may be, because, ultimately (and obviously), they're poisoned with superstitious and delusional thinking. Lol! His position might as well be that the tooth fairy is real! I can therefore dismiss "his work" as meaningless religious drivel and be completely comfortable with it.
***** LOL! Yes, I most certainly can, and will, dismiss his "work" because it's religious (superstitious) in nature!! And, no, I don't need to address any arguments he makes for any superstitious belief system being factual and true!! And.. I've already shown why I think they're not "sound" by explaining that he's arguing for superstition!! What is it about this that you're not getting?? And what is it with this "you need to" shit?? I don't "need to" do anything. I'm not making any incredible claims. I'm merely sticking with reality, and that which can be proven as fact.
***** No, it is you who doesn't understand how logic works. If the question is: Does god exist? Those who assert a god does exist, must provide evidence for having made such an extraordinary claim. Those who do not believe such a being exists need not provide any explanation for their skepticism. After all, if it were the other way around, one would be forever burdened with trying to disprove the existence of every imaginable sort of fantastic and non-existent creature.. If you cannot realize and/or accept that religion is superstitious thinking, that's your problem, not mine. Just as I can assume the ancient Israeli mountain god that christianity co-opted and transformed into an invisible sky god doesn't exist, I can also assume unicorns, werewolves, vampires, leprechauns and fairies also do not exist. My assumptions are based on rational thinking and the reality that surrounds us all, not superstitious thinking - which is at the base of all religions. I pity you. It must be awful living in such a warped and unpredictable universe..
Alternatively when good things happen to Men, its God the first they credit, & when bad happen to Men, its God they are least likely to question. “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” Epicurus
Logic / Reason / Evidence Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. First of all, if God is willing to prevent evil but not able, then it would be true that he is not omnipotent. But this would mean that he is not the God of the Bible since the God of the Bible does whatever he desires to do (Eph. 1:11). Second, Epicurus offers no definition for evil. Therefore, how can his assertion be validated? It can't. How would someone, say an atheist, define evil and also justify the definition as being the right one? Is evil unnecessary suffering? Is it murder but not stealing a paperclip? Is it a famine, an earthquake, bad thoughts, and/or wrong motives? Again, without defining what evil is, the validity of the statements cannot be properly assessed. Third, after a definition is offered, and hopefully justified, we can then ask to what degree ought God prevent evil? Should God prevent mass starvation, but not the theft of a paperclip? Who decides where the boundary is drawn? What about a person's evil thoughts and intentions? Should God prevent those from occurring as well and thus violate a person's free will? Is that okay? If so, why? If not, why not? Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. This objection presupposes that if God can prevent evil, then he should. But why ought God stop evil (all evil?) from happening? Just saying so does not make it so. Furthermore, the second assertion presupposes a kind of moral absolute; namely, that evil ought to be prevented by anyone who is able to prevent it. We must ask, from where is such a universal moral absolute obtained? Is it made up by people? Is it voted on? Or is it just assumed, by faith, to be true? This is important because this second assertion presupposes a moral absolute. So how do we validate the moral assertion? Is it by intuition? If so, how do we know the intuition is right? Is it by logic? Then what logical syllogism or deduction is used that necessitates such moral obligation? In addition, there are questions we would have to ask that are related to this second assertion. Could it be that God can use evil for a greater good, as would be exemplified in the evil of the crucifixion by which people are redeemed? Could it be that the freedom God allows people to have also means that they must have the freedom to choose to do what is bad? This would mean that he desires people not to do evil, but that he also desires that they be free to do that which is contrary to God; namely, evil. Also, could it be that God would have reasons to allow evil that we do not understand? After all, he's greater than us and he understands things in a way that we do not, and we are not privy to his scope of knowledge. Therefore, it is possible that he could have reasons to allow evil that we cannot understand. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? If God is both able and willing to stop evil, but chooses not to stop all evil, that means God has allowed evil to exist. As is stated above, there are many aspects to this issue of allowing evil, including free will, the degree of evil, the definition of evil, how much evil ought God stop, etc. Biblically speaking, evil originated in the heart and mind of Lucifer who decided to rebel against God. It was he who acted as though he "lacked belief in God," when he did not trust in God's wisdom and declarations but instead behaved in a manner that is consistent with independence from God. Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? We should call him God because he is God. Also, as is stated in the previous paragraphs the issue of ability and willingness to prevent evil should not be taken as isolated assertions without context, further examination, or establishing some moral contexts (definition of evil, levels of evil, kinds of evil, how much evil to prevent) by which the assertions can be properly evaluated. Since this fourth assertion is built upon the previous three, and the previous three are in no way conclusive, then the fourth cannot be trusted as being a valid couplet.
@@DaBestSquigma preventing evil would both preserve and prevent free will. If god stops a man from raping a woman, he protected her free will at the cost of his free will, for a net free will of zero. Apart from that, your argument doesn't address "natural evil" god could prevent, like plagues and floods
@Van Smack Existence of GOD.. yea. thats hard. I cannot prove your existence. I have to accept you exist solely based on your comment. is this a bot on the other end? Speak to me Bot.. Speak. No Its not a bot, but its Van Smack tryna smack sam. I have to believe you exist on the other end of the communication and now can argue your existence based on solely what you have communicated to me? I am not you. So, i have to prove that you exist cause i know experientially now that you exist. And one more thing. If you send me your picture or, if you just visit and meet me and say that you are Van smack and you leave. I have to write a book about you to skeptics and other people who wish to know you with the available tech that i got and share it with the world of Van smack haters and lovers. replace Van smack wth Christ and you get the Christian msg.
When we had God “in our face”, either as a wondrous sign, or in the flesh as in Jesus, we still rejected him. We don’t have a lack of belief because of lack of evidence, we reject him because we are sinful and fallen. We want to think we can have the moral authority to dictate our lives and or we love our sins too much.
I would have to respectfully disagree. There are instances of "non-resistant, non-believers" (I include myself here) who genuinely wish to believe in God but cannot because the evidence for his existence isn't compelling enough. See J.L. Schellenberg's Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason. (1993)
@Christian: No one thought Jesus was a god until after he died, when people had to explain how it could be that that supposed "anointed one" (a returning king of the Jews) had been publicly humiliated via crucifixion. There's no record of him having been buried, especially not in an individual tomb, given that the common practice at the time was to leave the bodies on the crosses for several days, then dump the cadavers in a mass grave, thus depriving them of a proper Jewish burial. You believe in myths constructed long after Jesus died.
His humility is telling, our biggest problem is that we somewhat think we know or understand everything, and it’s not a cop out, it’s a fact we don’t know everything, not to say therefore God but just the fact that we just don’t know so inferences to the best explanation are crucial
@@rstevewarmorycom How did you reach this conclusion then? So normal people comes from the "norm" which in turn comes from social construct, so the normal people are those who believe in God, so you just stupidly shot yourself in the foot, didn't you? Second point, what is it that you think you know that a religious idiot doesn't? Name one thing. Normal: Is an expected behaviour, many studies that were carried out confirmed that it is natural and healthy for us to believe in God, what you meant to say is the normal people vs the twisted little abnormal so called atheists who don't even have one argument to support their own belief, who are driven by their emotions and psychologically bruised. Some atheist was asked what if you met God after you die, he said, I will tell him to go to hell, if that's not an irrational and emotional reaction I don't know what is, this is what I call an idiot and you seem to subscribe to the same ridiculousness as this guy, which shows that 99% of your arguments are emotionally driven and that's why you always result into insults and aggressive behaviours, name calling etc.. It's because you're insecure in your own belief.
speculations don't bring you closer to truth they just leave you in a fog of uncertainty. You realize God through the one thing that is most intimate about you that is related to God, and that would be your consciousness because truth is something realized not seen.
@Chris Eggleton Yes, when John said, "your word is truth " it begs to question, what is the nature of truth? Since truth can be defined as " that which is realized to be true " and since realization depends on consciousness the foundation of truth is consciousness ( I AM ) and being a supreme absolute person God must be the ultimate realizer of truth.
When he describes his experience - these arguments not having much impact on him (except for evil) - keep in mind, this man has been reading the bible, praying, being in church, "walking with God" since he was a teenager. He is "bonded" deeply to the God he is talking about. He's not being arrogant when he describes his experience. And he's very gifted in philosophy/theology. The rest of us who also believe and want to be Christians might still struggle a bit more than him. But I think he's being genuine and actually honest when he says what he says. The book published by P&R by Greg Welty on Plantinga presents him as sincere and humble with regard to his faith and experience of God.
Manages to use two arguments that directly contradict one another in a three-minute span. Why would God create a universe that seems so vast, inefficient, and random? 7:45 "Arguments of that sort all presume that the arguer knows what God would like, or what God would want to be the case... and there's no reason to think that we know those things." How do we know believe in God isn't simply wish fulfillment? 10:13 Maybe it is, because God "would want us to know about him" and maybe wish fulfillment is just the ticket to get us to believe. So we can't know what God wants (which is why it's no problem at all believing that an all-good, all-powerful god created a world that contains horrifying, pointless suffering) until we can (because he would definitely want us to know about him, even if he has to take the bizarrely oblique route of literally tricking us into believing the truth through - once again - intense suffering). Mehhh
A "wish" is a desire. We desire what we believe we are missing and when attained will make us more complete. If God does exist and our essence is a part of God, then it would he natural for us to "desire" to reunite with God, where this "desire" is built into us...
@@rstevewarmorycom I agree but "stupid abusive fantasy".....wow! Did you learn these big big complex for first time that you are using it? That sentence literally makes absolutely no sense.
His arguments are not circular, because his argument's conclusions are not "There is a God." Most times, his argument's conclusion is that belief in God is rational, or something like that.
+Danny M I don't know if its rational, but its entirely human to want to believe in a higher power that somehow makes amends for the tumultuous life we experience. A bit deluded, but I can see why humans would believe in such a thing.
@@dannym8934 This challenges the definition of the word rational for me. If there's no god then belief in a god isn't rational. If the argument is you had an individual experience of god and that makes your own individual belief in god rational only to you I can understand this but then what bridges the connection between individual experience and rationality, that is what makes one individuals experience of god to themselves more rational than anothers individual experience of being abducted by aliens or another individuals experience of vishnu or another persons experience of a ghost? I need help.
@@louisuchihatm2556 an all good being would do what ever it can to create as much good even if allowing some evil;an all good being can allow evil to create good
If god really did plant knowledge of himself in all humans, why did he make this knowledge so vague that the vast majority of humans that ever lived worshiped the wrong gods. Being omniscient, one can only conclude that for some bizarre reason he wanted it this way
Saying that the knowledge of God is so vague just seems to suggest that it could be anything. It doesn't seem to be bizarre that God had reasons to be present everywhere in Nature. It's simply one doesn't acknowledge its logical possibility.
If being alive and well are miracles from God then, all people are alive and well but homeless, poor and sick are blessed with miracles. If all evil deeds are God allowing free will, then evil people are certainly exercising their free will to the full extent. If having to accept all of the above, then what is the use of prayers because praying to get out of poverty, illness and evil doesn't work.
That’s because all Plantinga is doing is sidestepping the objections. Saying that he doesn’t find the atheist objections to the various “omni” claims aren’t persuasive to him just means he’s not paying attention. Those “Omni” objections exist to show that the way the Christians use language to describe their god is incoherent. And we bring those objections to so that the Christians can come up with a more coherent definition for the things they say they believe in. Now, the hesitance of a theist to take seriously the need to have a coherent definition for the thing they say is the most important thing in the world, is very telling. It’s almost as if they know that if they try to think and speak clearly about their god, they will realize they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about, and that the only way to resolve the contradictions is to abandon some important aspect of their belief. So they REALLY don’t want to think clearly. And they don’t want others to, either.
@@ahgflyguy I note that the Muslim and Christian apologetics constantly use philosophy as thier proof of god. A good start for a theory, but it needs way more work. They still seem to jump to therefore god pretty quickly, but they also claim that the god of the gaps arguement has been refuted. Which tells me that they are desperately clinging to faith alone. I am quite happy for them to believe in god on faith alone. But they should be honest enough to admit that.
@@user-pt6ug5ug3m If you can get them to be honest enough to admit that they believe on faith- that is, in spite of evidence and not because of evidence- then you could probably get them to admit that there’s no position they COULDN’T take based on faith. And then they might realize they’re deluding themselves. And I think that’s why their faith defense mechanisms evolved to always distract them away from discussing why they believe, in particular what would have to change for them to NOT believe.
@@ahgflyguy I find that more Christians read atheist literature like Dawkins, Hitchens etc than I find atheists who read Thomas Aquinas, Alvin platinga or Blaise Pascal or even C.S. Lewis.
We would not have the churches OR hospitals that we do if it wasn't for our Judeo-Christian roots. Tom Holland (the philosopher) has discussed this extensively with regard to the impact of Christianity on Western society.
No one disputes that poorly evidenced propositions are capable of being true. The question is whether we have any particular reason for supposing them to be true. In other words, insufficient evidence bears not on the abstract truth of a proposition, but on its justifiable believability. As Bertrand Russell pointed out, it may be abstractly true that there is a teapot in orbit of the sun, but one is not thereby justified in believing such a thing.
So he just says all arguments that are inconvenient are “not much of an argument.” That’s handy. I don’t really see the purpose of arguing for the existence or non existence of God, since it’s unfalsifiable.
I'm guessing you don't see any arguments for the earth being flat as much of an argument, does that mean it's unfalsifiable and we shouldn't care about it? Well we could do that if everyone believed the earth was round but not everyone believes that. It's the same with God.
How is it unfalsified? If people disproved the the universe of beginning, that would have to disprove the creator of universe. Also if people could show if god is logically impossible that would also falsify.
@@minetime6881 You can’t disprove the existence of a god. That’s common knowledge. Even the most ardent atheists (e.g. Richard Dawkins) agree that there’s always a possibility, but they don’t believe there is evidence of its existence. But as scientists know, the lack of evidence is not evidence of nonexistence. You can never be 100% sure about it, or anything else for that matter. For example, life can be a simulation and everything you’ve ever experienced could be fabricated. You would never be able to know that it is or it isn’t, because all of your data would be potentially compromised. Therefor, questions like this aren’t worth arguing about. Other things are worth arguing about, because they function within the observable universe where predictions can be made. The notion of the existence of a god does not necessarily meet that criteria.
@@j3cruz1 I disagree with Richard Dawkins. If the universe was confirmed to be eternal then that would disprove that there is a God that created one dimensional time at one point (e.i. The current understanding of what the bible says.) Ok, I agree that we can’t be 100% sure of anything (except that at least one thing exists). By falsifiable I mean beyond a reasonable doubt. 99% sure. There are plenty of things we can say would be the case if God exists. We would expect to find a begining. We would expect to find people yearning for something spiritual. We would expect to find a great deal of apparent design in the universe. I would say that’s what we see. I agree that we should not discuss unfalsifiable things in a way as if we could, but I think God fits in the category that he could probably not be proved with certainty, but enough to believe that He probably exists.
Just because one doesn't understand the ways of God, does not mean he doesn't exist. Atheists need to remember this fact. Science and philosophy are the proper realms for debating whether or God exists or not (although I believe they both point to His existence). Proclaiming God doesn't exist because you aren't acquainted for the theological/philosophical reasons why God would allow evil, and therefore don't understand his ways, is not a proper argument.
If God is the God who is eternal, meaning He has no beginning and has no end. If God is over all things, and all things were created by Him, it should be expected that it is impossible for us to understand His reasons for why things are the way they are. To have the view that we if we can not make sense of the "why" of some things, that proves there is no God, is the height of pride. You put yourselves on the same level as God. That is the original lie the Serpent told Eve in the Garden. Their is a faith that Christians have that non-Christians will never understand. 3But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: 4In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. And especially 1st Cor. 2:14 "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned". It is not possible for the unsaved natural man to understand what is meant by the term "Christian inner witness".
The problem is, that is itself also problematic, I mean, It is “logically possible” to create and infinitely heavy stone/ create something that oneself cannot lift, it is “logically possible” to be infinitely strong/be able to lift anything. The problem arises when you put them together, so the set of “logically possible actions” is a logically inconsistent set. What Platinga would mean is “his powers and nature are logically consistent” , or to put it differently “god can do anything that is not against his nature”. But putting this simplistically, it means “god cannot do what god cannot do”. And even claiming god is eternally logical pretty weak, the rules of logic are contingent on our universe, they are not special metatruths. So god is bound my rules he is supposed to have created? And even if you dismiss this somehow and for example claim that logic transcends our universe, why would you think that? Why do the laws of logic, which are an inherent part of our universe/world, transcend our world, but the laws of thermodynamics, which are as “true” as the laws of logic, don’t transcend our world? That is just convenient cherrypicking to save their incoherent and inconsistent concept of god. Every “omni-property” is pretty much nonsense in reality, or at least extremely poorly defined by theists.
What other reasons do you have? 1) The possibility doesn't have to be true, it just has to be possible in order to prove non-contradiction. God could have plenty of reasons to remain hidden. 2) What in particular do you find absurd? 3) Again, the purpose is freely entering into a relationship via love. Knowledge and free will are not sufficient on their own. Actual love cannot be forced. BTW the scripture reference says the demons know and tremble (but the context is discussing faith+acts).
I wrote this as a response to Karstine Berry below, who commented on pipertripp's top-level comment, but I'll enter my response here also, as a top-level comment (edited by me to remove blank lines:) Atheists are rational people, and their claim is simply this: if God is transcendent or unknowable in a scientific way, then for all intents and purposes, the claimed entity does not exist, because the entity cannot reproducibly be shown to exist. And by reproducible, I’m referring to the scientific method, a well known and understood process for repeatedly establishing results (with acceptable margins of error, naturally, given that we live in a probabilistic universe.) Similarly, if God is immanent, and is everywhere present in the universe, then reproducible proof of the entity’s existence is a reasonable expectation, but no such proof exists. Gravity, as a counterexample, is everywhere present in the universe, it abides by certain laws, and all of our investigations into gravity have resulted in reproducible experiments with consistent results. Gravity waves, an effect of gravity, serve as an interesting collateral counterexample - they have only recently been physically proved to exist, whereas the mathematics for the proof of their existence has been available to us since 1915. Gravity waves bring up an interesting point about the scientific method. Physical proof is different from theoretical proof. Once one accepts the soundness of a theory like General Relativity, then one should - rationally speaking - accept even the most outrageous implications of the theory, like gravity waves, but we still cling to the need for physical proof, as an alternate means of corroboration. Let me be clear in saying that this physical proof is itself very abstract, and is not as cut-and-dried as the dropping of an apple, as in the classic Newtonian anecdote on the discovery of gravity. So - and the following is critical to the worldview of atheists - the non-existence of a single reproducible proof of a “god” is both sufficient and necessary for the claim that a “god” does not exist. In the event an experiment, or proof that a “god” exists was brought to atheists, then atheist scientists would do what they always do - they would run the experiment many times and in many different configurations, and they would come up with counter-experiments, etc. to challenge assumptions, and prior results and outcomes. If, after all this, the experimental and theoretical proof for the existence of the “god” were shown to be consistently reproducible, then atheists would say - they would be bound to say - that this “god” exists, and is real. But no such experiment, with the standard rigorous requirements, has yet been devised by those who claim a “god” exists. Until that occurs, it is rationally sound to say: a godlike entity is not known to exist anywhere in the universe. (When “known to exist” is equated with “I can feel god is there”, etc., rational people understand the human tendency to do this, but discard the statement for not being a meaningful argument.) As for a “god” existing outside the universe, well, given our current theories on the origin of the universe, and on the bounds of human knowledge prior to the birth of the universe, it does not make scientific sense to say we should know something that “exists” outside the bounds of universal existence. Which brings us back to Transcendence and Immanence. In the case of Transcendence, a “god” in no way touches the physical universe, so claims made by humans that a god at some point did come into the universe to inspire the events that were written in the holy books of the world rules out a Transcendent god: it would imply an Immanent god, but an Immanent material god would be identifiable and knowable to science in the universe, and again no such experiment has been presented by those who claim there is a god. (Aside: Is it possible that “god” is like gravity waves - which is why I mentioned them - and this entity will be discovered later on? No, because one of the implications of General Relativity is that gravity waves exist, and we have no similar consistent theory for the existence of a god. Is it possible that “god” is like General Relativity prior to 1905, i.e. not yet known about but a valid theory waiting to be discovered? No, because General Relativity was a response to Newton’s theory of gravity, and thus was built on the foundation of an established, reproducible scientific method of mechanics, whereas no such prior theory and experiment exist in the case of a claim of the existence of a god. Is it possible that proof of “god” is awaiting an as of yet unknown theory of the universe, as say, was the case for the world 10,000 years ago, prior to the dawn of organized agriculture and society, when science was not yet known? Yes, it is possible, but no more possible than the speculation of the opposite, that no such “as of yet unknown theory” exists, in which case both speculations are equally likely and unlikely at the same time, and neither one is favored over the other as a possible future, and so, statistically, neither one carries any more weight than the other, and in a summation of all possible futures would in each case cancel each other out. Relativity, at least in terms of speculation of its possible existence 10,000 years ago was very much more likely given that it eventually came to be built up from observations in the physical world, whereas an immaterial god requires a completely new system that also would need to interact with systems that we now know do exist, thereby lowering the probability of that likelihood, i.e. in a closed system, a greater number of dependent unknowns lessen the likelihood of an outcome being true, or provable.) Three final things: Certainty: science at present considers the universe to be a probabilistic place, and hence “certainty” holds no privileged position there. When something is proved, it is proved to be the case within an acceptable margin of error - the proof does not need to claim X is true 100% of the time. So, in the universe, certainty is not attainable and, hence, is not a meaningful expectation in terms of outcomes in the universe. Followers of religion often resort to certainty in claim X or in claim Y, and when discussing this with a scientifically trained person there will be immediate disagreement regarding the terms that are being used. In a scientific universe, certainty has no practical meaning. If you ask an atheist whether she or he is certain a god does or does not exist, you are asking that person a meaningless question, as the attribute of “certainty” doesn’t have any meaning for them. The universe, based on all of our experiments, is not made that way, whether we like that attribute or not - it is as it is. Positive statements: When you say that it is incumbent on atheists to prove that a god does not exist, then no, this is not meaningful in terms of how science works. When something does not exist, it does not exist in an infinite number of ways. When something does exist, it need only be shown to exist as one consistent, reproducible thing. A positive statement, then, is a statement about attribute Y of a known extant entity X; a positive statement is not a statement about non-existence. So it makes much more logical sense that those who believe in a god prove to atheists that a god exists, as one consistent, reproducible thing. Atheists, in turn, will examine that proof and put it through the same rigorous set of tests that all other proofs require, and should the proof be shown to be true, then atheists will accept that truth, which would, of course, be subject to the usual scientific revision and improvement over time. Miracles, for example, are sometimes given as proof for the existence of a god; however, the proofs are not reproducible, or the data (aka, “evidence”) is not always consistent, or complete, or meaningful. That is, when a proof does not meet the requirements for the definition of a proof in the scientific sense, then the proof is not a proof at all, and is dismissed. So, to date, no such scientific proof has been presented to atheists. And, until such proof is presented, there is no data with which a meaningful discussion of the existence of god can be had, which leads atheists to the statement that their confidence in the existence of god, based on data and experiment, is as close to zero as is scientifically meaningful. That is all that is required of atheists to know that a proof for the existence of god has not been responsibly presented to them. Agnostics: Their logic is flawed, because the statement “insufficient evidence exists” directly claims that “some evidence exists”, and evidence is evidence, and can only be called evidence when it can be used as input to a rigorously verifiable mechanism that is itself logically and scientifically sound. However, it appears that agnostics equate “insufficient” with “misunderstood” or “supposed”, because either we have some sound data or we do not, and sound data we can work with, without controversy. But that sound evidence, little as it might be to agnostics actually does not exist. Hearsay, superstition, myth, tradition, rumor, etc., all exist, but are not sufficient constituents of scientific data.
@@forestvvoods577 Use the "scientific method" to prove that a god exists, and the responsibility for this proof is - first and foremost - in the hands of those who believe in the claim of the existence of the god. It is not up to people like myself to provide that proof, but should a sound proof be provided, and peer-reviewed by others who understand the scientific method, then yes, that proof would certainly be worth further examination. Your statement of course is made up of assumptions: that your god is a "he", and that your god exists "outside the natural world." And your statement is made up of contradictions: if your god is outside the natural world, how do you even know anything about such a god? (And don't tell me that "the bible tells me so...", since this is a book written by other humans who are also contained within the natural world.) And if you say something like "well god sometimes reaches into the natural world and communicates with people" then, clearly your god is NOT "outside the natural world" - part of the god is somehow inside the natural world. So which is it, fully outside or partly outside? A different view: is it possible that some super-intelligent life-form created our universe? Yes, it is possible. Is it possible that there are other life-forms within our universe? Yes, it is possible. Is it likely that we humans are somehow special and that a book like the bible links us above all others in the universe to the creators of the universe? No - this is very unlikely. Either all life-forms on this planet, and all life-forms that might exist off this planet are equally important to the experimenters / creators of our universe (the universe is then just another experiment, right?) or no experiment is under way at all: either way, we are not special, and there isn't any "heaven" or "hell" waiting for us. We're just another life-form that has births and deaths, and nothing else, and there's nothing wrong with that.
@@ethancoffey3491 In today's world, you know that what you are saying has value when not a single person likes it. By getting "one like" I have clearly made a mistake somewhere; "no likes" would be, er, more like it.
@@patrickobrien8851 😂😂😂 you snapped on this Patrick, you really did, but let's take for instance love, is there a "scientific" method to conclude it exists or quantify it or the likes? You're free to say it doesn't exist but does that mean it doesn't? Also I didn't say you had to give proof I said if we're doing this scientifically, how would that look like ... And I don't really think you've given me a method or structure since you claim this the is best way to attain God, also prophets communicated with God through visions, dreams etc, or he appeared to them through natural conduits (fire, smoke etc) they weren't him but a channel which he communicates... If you don't believe that, are you willing to say it's possible?
People's fear of hell and bad fortune makes them prefer to believe in a God than to believe in nothing. By believing in a God gives them at least a sliver of hope.
Of course, the sword cuts both ways doesnt it? I could just as easily dismiss atheists ideas based on some assumed psychological profile. Thats why these things are best debated without recourse to personal psychology
Sagan Worshipper Says you, an admitted idol worshipper. What's weirder, worshipping a single unified creative intelligence... Or worshipping a man or created thing? The answer is obvious.
@7:00 CORRECTION Why then do Calvinists ABHOR a model of Jesus Christ that did not die for the sins of the ELECT alone? Why do they hate a Jesus Christ who might have paid for the sins of lost men who will never believe & therefore perish? Why then must God be economically efficient in the matter of Atonement while the naturalist & atheist point our how inefficient God is in His creation?
but if something has to be logically possible in regards to God (he mentions, God cannot create a stone that big that he (an omnipotent being) cannot lift), doesnt that mean that he cannot be God because he is restricted by logic? if logic is a "higher realm" than God, than God by definition is not God.
It's that the so called logically impossibly things aren't actually things at all. They don't have a being, an existent. They're just a mix of words that doesn't refer to anything at all. Imagine a square circle. What is it? So we're not actually saying that there is something that God can't do. It's just our language deluding us into believing that there is something (whether it actually exists in reality or not) called square round.
Heres's the answer for "Why Evil Exists." Ecclesiastes.1:13 And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that are done under heaven, "This Sore Travail Has GOD Given To The Sons of Man To Be HUMBLED" (Stong's # 6031) mistranslation in the KJV and S/B Humbled. So why does God "Allow Evil"? To humble us and bring us to him. "Repent and Believe the Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven" Is the message. After he did create us in his image to "Know Good and Evil."
that most people believe that god is real doesn't make god real. when people prior to scientific knowledge believed in spirits and magic, didn't make those ideas real
What's your best reason for believing that & what is a 'spirit' (please don't dodge that question by simply saying what it ISN'T or simply what it DOES).
If you start with the faith you were indoctrinated into then presuppositions like god's existence and the veracity of scripture can be accepted without the slightest hesitation or skeptical thought. Presupposing god exists make it very easy to find evidence for god. If such a being depends on the perception of other minds to exist or not exist then it may be worth simply walking away from the issue altogether. Yahweh? Allah? Hanuman? Vishnu? It is likely that if you belief in one of these gods it is because you were raised into such a belief before you had reason to reject it.
The human mind created the conception of God. So far, all descriptions about its entity is anthropomorphic. The existence of God falls under Belief system. It cannot be argued. So the wise thing to do is to let the faithful live with their Belief and let the science continue to do its job so we all, believers or non-believers, can enjoy the fruits of the scientific investigations. Let both Faith and Science go about their work. Democracy and the rule of law will always try to prevent us to misuse Faith or Science.
On the question about why doesn’t God make Himself known “physically” so that we would believe? It’s not just that we believe God exists, it’s about loving God and wanting to be with God. The scriptures talk about people who believe in God but don’t live like God does exist or want God to exist which is why it says, you say you believe in God, but even the demons believe in God “and obey when God says to do something like leave a person” yet they are going to hell. Why? Because even though they believe in God, they hate God and are against Him and His plan for salvation.
Warranted rejection requires reasons to reject. Rocks are atheists in the same way they "lack belief in God". The semantic game is tiring, I think you can agree. So why don't you tell me where you personally stand on the issue?
and who told u that rocks do not believe in God, how did u make it certain given that u still do not know how the rock is able to hold its atoms together without chaotic scattering
Plantinga is arguing from hypotheticals. In other words, anything is a possibility. But hypotheticals don’t make something real. We should not judge things by some possibility but should instead draw conclusions that can be supported with empirical evidence. Possibly does not make for actuality. Hypotheticals has the tendency to exit the bounds of probability and actuality to imbue the imaginary with authenticity.
You’re missing the point of hypotheticals. They’re not meant to be “real” on their own-they’re tools to explore possibilities, just like how science uses thought experiments to understand things before there’s hard evidence. Plantinga isn’t saying hypotheticals equal reality; he’s showing that belief in God is logically sound. If you reject hypotheticals entirely, you’re cutting off the same reasoning that drives both science and philosophy, which honestly just weakens your stance
Got news for ya… yes, hypotheticals are avenues of potential discovery. But pursuing hypotheticals must always be CONNECTED to physical evidence. Hypotheticals not linked to even the most basic of data is a huge waste of time & resources. Take Einstein for example. His thought experiment(s) were built upon known laws of physics, But when it comes to theology and the supernatural, there’s no good reason for ANYONE to accept such ideas as fact.
One of the great prophets Moses, said " I set before you today Life and good,Death and Evil..... Choose Life so that you and your descendants may live." ( Deuteronomy chapter 30 verses 15 and 19). God is giving mankind a choice of belonging to the evil side or the good and godly side. One day they shall be no more death or pain or sorrows. For God will wipe away all tears from their eyes. Death will be swallowed up in victory. And Christ Jesus will reign in a new and perfect earth for a thousand years. The New Millennium.( Book of Revelations) Until then evil exists and everyone has a choice for God or Satan's side. God gives us a choice. No one will enter paradise against their own will. We may not know everything but it is comforting to know one day at the second coming of Christ evil will be defeated completely. Then paradise for the faithful believers. I hope this somehow answer the question. Although I admit some things will remain spiritual mysteries. But we don't need to know everything in order to know that there is eternal life through Christ
Amazing how often Plantinga fllas back on theistic skepticism (we don't know God's motivations) to answer these objections. Yet when theists argue for God, they routinely assume God's motivations. I don't think one can have it both ways.
@@yunisazizli7737 he is hyperbolically paraphrasing I’d say. His argument is, a concept which is beyond our comprehension (and therefore also cannot be proven or disproven with the means we are equipped with) is of no rational/analytical, only of sentimental use.
Why is there “evil” and “bad things” in our world?? Because we are experiencing the manifestation of what mankind is capable of with our immeasurable minds, our powerful word, and our capable presence, when they are given the authority we have. It’s not that we have “free will”, we do not, however we have been given choices that delude us into this thinking (especially in the western world). We are learning “man’s ways” and when our flesh passes away and we are born into Life, we will have a testimony of the difference between OUR ways (unto “death”) and the Creators Way (unto LIFE for all!😃)… Does God “allow” it? Yes for that very reason…HIS ways are not the same as our ways. HE is the Father of all Life. We mutilate and try to destroy all of the Life He’s made…just look around. Down to 1% of the created world left in our existence.🤔🤓
0:30 "we don't know there no such thing as a disembodied mind" is a very poor argument for a disembodied mind. 0:35 All the minds we know of are in brains isn't a strong argument for there not being disembodied minds. We know of billions of minds and all of them are in brains, that's pretty strong evidence for minds being dependent on brains or at least something physical. 1:00 That most people believe in god isn't good evidence for god either. Specially when those people vastly different and contradictory things about god (or gods). 1:40 God might have a good reason to be hidden. Another poor argument, God might also have a good reason for not being is just a good of an argument. 2:00 Not believing in god is a cognitive deficiency. Basically an argument of the form "if you don't believe like I do you are crazy". It's bad argument when atheists use it and it's a bad argument when theists use it. It's a bad argument. 2:30 He doesn't counter the problem of evil argument, he didn't even correctly summarize it. It's not the god doesn't have reasons, it's that an all good, all knowing, all powerful creator is logically inconsistent with there being evil in the world. I've been looking and looking for a good argument for god's existence but once again I've been disappointed.
@7:00 On the matter of efficiency. If we extend the idea of an inefficient or liberal God to the matter of atonement then why could not an inefficient God though Jesus Christ atone for sins that men might never actually commit or persons who may never actually believe & be saved? Why then do Calvinists abhor a model of Jesus Christ who did not die for the sins of the elect? Why do other forms of Christianity abhor a model of Jesus Christ Who only died for sins we actually commit vs sins we could commit with our free will? Does not free will demand that God atone for sins we could have chosen had we made other decisions with our lives? As for inefficiency consider the Sun Moon & Stars which God created. How much energy is being emitted from our sun that will never fall upon the earth? How much light is being emitted from the stars that no eye on earth will ever see? Does not God create all things for His enjoyment & glory and not necessarily for the sake of men or angels?
Does a maximally great being (a being that exists in every possible world) exist in some possible world? Perhaps... Is that a logically acceptable response? Because if it is, then the conclusion doesn't follow. How do we know such a being exists in any possible world?
@@sebastiancandor8680 Perhaps is a yes because it doesn't say no and therefore accepts the possiblity. The only refutation is to show that it isn't possible.
Regarding the timeline of creation stated in Genesis 1 of the Bible, many people think that creation occurred within a 7 "earth-day" period. However, if one reads the actual text of the Bible carefully, it is very clear that the “days” mentioned in Genesis 1 are not referring to the assumed 24-hour earth- days with which we are all accustomed. Because, what is a “day” on earth? Isn’t a "earth-day” the single revolution of the earth around its axis? (By the way, science has shown that the rotation of the earth has not been constant over earth's history. Additionally, every celestial body has a different length for its "day".) According to the Bible, the Earth was not "formed" until the 3rd day of creation. Prior to the 3rd day of creation, the earth was "without form and void". So, how could an "unformed" earth have rotated about its non-existent axis during the first two days of creation to provide a measure of time? Clearly, God was using a different measure of time for a “day” during the “seven days of creation”. In other words, God was not using an “earth-day” as a unit measure of time during creation. To think that God would use an "earth-based time clock" to measure the creation of the universe is akin to the out-dated geocentric belief that the universe revolves around the earth. Even though God is everywhere at all times, God did not have to be "on" earth [Obviously, since the earth had not even been formed until the third "day" of creation.] and therefore not limited by an earthly time frame, when He created the heavens and the earth. (By the way, when was the clock invented? When was the unit measure of time for a second, a minute, an hour, a 24-hour day established? These are all relatively new innovations. So, how could they have measured time at the moment of creation.) God is beyond heaven, earth ... and time.
If 'God' is just 'Reality' then worshiping 'Reality' is just worshiping yourself and ultimately it's just about your own Ego making you feel happy with yourself. In other words there's no god and even if there is it doesn't matter.
We can't see the point of why God would do X, but without a doubt we can be sure about all of his characteristics as long they're the ones we like........
Is evil a problem or the motivation to seek God? How do we recognise what is evil and who is to judge what is evil? Evil or death is the last enemy according to the Christian tradition. Was it not Jesus claiming to be God who did not find equality with God something to be grasped but clothed himself with humility even to death on a cross to be our redeemer from judgement of the evil in the world that we caused and continue to cause?
When speaking of the universe (as we know it), I look at the story in the scriptures is strictly for this planet. Because scripture only tells our story.
1:01 that's some excellent ad populum. Nevermind that all of humanity agreed on the fact that the Sun orbited the Earth before the Renaissance, and something like 25% of the population to this day says it takes one month for the Earth to orbit the Sun. Isn't it weird that belief in God correlates negatively with education and an expertise in science or philosophy Alvin? Isn't it weird that the trend is less people believing in God (and other supersitions) as science infiltrates society? It seems to me that he is a pariah among professional philosophers and that he is an anti-educator and anti-intellectual committed to perpetuating the mistake he was raised with. We have pretty good naturalistic explanations as to why belief in invisible supermen (note I said widespread, not universal, for there are atheistic religions, and whole atheistic ancient cultures (like the Piraha). Indeed, there were atheists in history before there were christians or jews). The reason is cognitive biases: a cognitive bias to rush answers before satisfactory explanations are found, bias to impute causality over coincidence, bias towards agency over inanimate causes, and a highly-overfitted capacity to detect person-like agents. In combination, this hierarchy of evolutionarily-ingrained biases makes sure our non-free-willing minds often can't help themselves think they detect invisible super-persons as the explanation for everything. (On a side note, I love how much this fact suits with Plantinga's firebrand bubble-head argument against reliance on our naturally evolved cognitive capacities). Fortunately, exposure to reason and science is the cure that allows us to take the best bits of our highly-flawed brain and potentiate them. The history after the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution are testament to their unique epistemic effectivity.
They say the devil is in the details, but actually God is in the details. Who reads the small print of the contract, not many, and its the same spiritually. Gods contract is His word.
Theists keep their definitions vague and loose enough to change them every time they generate contraddictions. Like Plantinga did with the concept of "omnipotence", which he redefined (from the classical notion of being able to do "any all thing" into just being able to do "everything that's LOGICALLY POSSIBLE") just to bypass the paradox of logics that the old concept creates (4:40). ...and by the way: claiming that god's power are limited to what is 'logically' possible, would mean that logics is superior to him, therefore he wouldn't be actually omnipotent.
Belief is a factor of conditioned awareness. "God" is a metaphor for that which __. One of the biggest hindrances to thinking about divinity is the fact that we conceptualise God as different from our everyday awareness. God then, becomes just another ideological prop to accept or dismiss, rather than a useful cognitive tool for relating to the mystery of being. Most religionists are like children trying to describe existence through infantile philosophical sketches. The more immature clumsiness leads to all sorts of contradictions between them and obfuscates any clear insight into divinity by one approaching the subject rationally. Few theologians make coherent and robust arguments for divinity because of these poor models, especially in the Christian tradition. The truth is within you, beyond words and it takes one hell of a mind to use them to make sense of divinity on a philosophical basis. Advaitin theologians have the most refined and subtle arguments for divinity, few Christian thinkers can hold a candle to them. There are of course exceptions: Peter Rollins, Francis Xavier Clooney--these names among the living come to mind. Pleased to learn about this man and grateful for this interview. His point of view is well appreciated.
I think the real issue here is that this is being argued in a backwards fashion. Kuhn really should have asked Plantinga to present his case. The arguments against are being treated as positive claims and those are easy to refute with almost any statement b/c you really can't prove the negative claim. The way this should be argued is that Plantinga needs to make his positive claim and then back it up with evidence. He needs to justify his claim of an omnipotent, omniscient being with proper evidence. In the end he needs to show, with evidence, why his claim is true and the default position (atheism in this case) is not justified. He didn't do this in the interview, but that's not entirely his fault because he spent the entire time focused on refuting positive claims.
An atheist who claims that God dos not exist , makes a positive claim...and needs to provide positive evidence for that claim.To understand this,one needs to be able to drop the tunnel reasoning that is the hall mark of atheism.Atheism IS A BELIEF..Sadly, atheists do not even know this.
@@mikeguliano3159 Agnosticism is the assertion that one does not have sufficient evidence to either (1) Believe God exists or (2) Believe God does not exist. Basically, agnosticism is the belief that one cannot adopt one belief or the other
@@karstineberry5639: (edited to remove blank lines.) Atheists are rational people, and their claim is simply this: if God is transcendent or unknowable in a scientific way, then for all intents and purposes, the claimed entity does not exist, because the entity cannot reproducibly be shown to exist. And by reproducible, I’m referring to the scientific method, a well known and understood process for repeatedly establishing results (with acceptable margins of error, naturally, given that we live in a probabilistic universe.) Similarly, if God is immanent, and is everywhere present in the universe, then reproducible proof of the entity’s existence is a reasonable expectation, but no such proof exists. Gravity, as a counterexample, is everywhere present in the universe, it abides by certain laws, and all of our investigations into gravity have resulted in reproducible experiments with consistent results. Gravity waves, an effect of gravity, serve as an interesting collateral counterexample - they have only recently been physically proved to exist, whereas the mathematics for the proof of their existence has been available to us since 1915. Gravity waves bring up an interesting point about the scientific method. Physical proof is different from theoretical proof. Once one accepts the soundness of a theory like General Relativity, then one should - rationally speaking - accept even the most outrageous implications of the theory, like gravity waves, but we still cling to the need for physical proof, as an alternate means of corroboration. Let me be clear in saying that this physical proof is itself very abstract, and is not as cut-and-dried as the dropping of an apple, as in the classic Newtonian anecdote on the discovery of gravity. So - and the following is critical to the worldview of atheists - the non-existence of a single reproducible proof of a “god” is both sufficient and necessary for the claim that a “god” does not exist. In the event an experiment, or proof that a “god” exists was brought to atheists, then atheist scientists would do what they always do - they would run the experiment many times and in many different configurations, and they would come up with counter-experiments, etc. to challenge assumptions, and prior results and outcomes. If, after all this, the experimental and theoretical proof for the existence of the “god” were shown to be consistently reproducible, then atheists would say - they would be bound to say - that this “god” exists, and is real. But no such experiment, with the standard rigorous requirements, has yet been devised by those who claim a “god” exists. Until that occurs, it is rationally sound to say: a godlike entity is not known to exist anywhere in the universe. (When “known to exist” is equated with “I can feel god is there”, etc., rational people understand the human tendency to do this, but discard the statement for not being a meaningful argument.) As for a “god” existing outside the universe, well, given our current theories on the origin of the universe, and on the bounds of human knowledge prior to the birth of the universe, it does not make scientific sense to say we should know something that “exists” outside the bounds of universal existence. Which brings us back to Transcendence and Immanence. In the case of Transcendence, a “god” in no way touches the physical universe, so claims made by humans that a god at some point did come into the universe to inspire the events that were written in the holy books of the world rules out a Transcendent god: it would imply an Immanent god, but an Immanent material god would be identifiable and knowable to science in the universe, and again no such experiment has been presented by those who claim there is a god. (Aside: Is it possible that “god” is like gravity waves - which is why I mentioned them - and this entity will be discovered later on? No, because one of the implications of General Relativity is that gravity waves exist, and we have no similar consistent theory for the existence of a god. Is it possible that “god” is like General Relativity prior to 1905, i.e. not yet known about but a valid theory waiting to be discovered? No, because General Relativity was a response to Newton’s theory of gravity, and thus was built on the foundation of an established, reproducible scientific method of mechanics, whereas no such prior theory and experiment exist in the case of a claim of the existence of a god. Is it possible that proof of “god” is awaiting an as of yet unknown theory of the universe, as say, was the case for the world 10,000 years ago, prior to the dawn of organized agriculture and society, when science was not yet known? Yes, it is possible, but no more possible than the speculation of the opposite, that no such “as of yet unknown theory” exists, in which case both speculations are equally likely and unlikely at the same time, and neither one is favored over the other as a possible future, and so, statistically, neither one carries any more weight than the other, and in a summation of all possible futures would in each case cancel each other out. Relativity, at least in terms of speculation of its possible existence 10,000 years ago was very much more likely given that it eventually came to be built up from observations in the physical world, whereas an immaterial god requires a completely new system that also would need to interact with systems that we now know do exist, thereby lowering the probability of that likelihood, i.e. in a closed system, a greater number of dependent unknowns lessen the likelihood of an outcome being true, or provable.) Three final things: Certainty: science at present considers the universe to be a probabilistic place, and hence “certainty” holds no privileged position there. When something is proved, it is proved to be the case within an acceptable margin of error - the proof does not need to claim X is true 100% of the time. So, in the universe, certainty is not attainable and, hence, is not a meaningful expectation in terms of outcomes in the universe. Followers of religion often resort to certainty in claim X or in claim Y, and when discussing this with a scientifically trained person there will be immediate disagreement regarding the terms that are being used. In a scientific universe, certainty has no practical meaning. If you ask an atheist whether she or he is certain a god does or does not exist, you are asking that person a meaningless question, as the attribute of “certainty” doesn’t have any meaning for them. The universe, based on all of our experiments, is not made that way, whether we like that attribute or not - it is as it is. Positive statements: When you say that it is incumbent on atheists to prove that a god does not exist, then no, this is not meaningful in terms of how science works. When something does not exist, it does not exist in an infinite number of ways. When something does exist, it need only be shown to exist as one consistent, reproducible thing. A positive statement, then, is a statement about attribute Y of a known extant entity X; a positive statement is not a statement about non-existence. So it makes much more logical sense that those who believe in a god prove to atheists that a god exists, as one consistent, reproducible thing. Atheists, in turn, will examine that proof and put it through the same rigorous set of tests that all other proofs require, and should the proof be shown to be true, then atheists will accept that truth, which would, of course, be subject to the usual scientific revision and improvement over time. Miracles, for example, are sometimes given as proof for the existence of a god; however, the proofs are not reproducible, or the data (aka, “evidence”) is not always consistent, or complete, or meaningful. That is, when a proof does not meet the requirements for the definition of a proof in the scientific sense, then the proof is not a proof at all, and is dismissed. So, to date, no such scientific proof has been presented to atheists. And, until such proof is presented, there is no data with which a meaningful discussion of the existence of god can be had, which leads atheists to the statement that their confidence in the existence of god, based on data and experiment, is as close to zero as is scientifically meaningful. That is all that is required of atheists to know that a proof for the existence of god has not been responsibly presented to them. Agnostics: Their logic is flawed, because the statement “insufficient evidence exists” directly claims that “some evidence exists”, and evidence is evidence, and can only be called evidence when it can be used as input to a rigorously verifiable mechanism that is itself logically and scientifically sound. However, it appears that agnostics equate “insufficient” with “misunderstood” or “supposed”, because either we have some sound data or we do not, and sound data we can work with, without controversy. But that sound evidence, little as it might be to agnostics actually does not exist. Hearsay, superstition, myth, tradition, rumor, etc., all exist, but are not sufficient constituents of scientific data.
@@patrickobrien8851 I must start by stating that I speak for " belief in The God of The Christian Bible" , and all those outrageous , supernatural claims for which The Christian Bible is unique.Now that I have circumscribed my field, you may choose to continue in this discussion. Atheists must at the least, consider the possibility of a Spiritual, non-physical universe, in which/for which the scientific method( great as it is) , is completely useless. For one to obstinately stick with the material universe (exclusively), and demand that supernatural claims about Supernatural Beings be... " brought to the atheist" , reveals many unpleasant things.I list just two, below: 1.) Atheists are unwilling to roll up their sleeves, and actually go out in search of evidences, what ever it takes and where-ever the quest may lead them. It would appear some have never done any experiment(scientific or not) of their own.They would rather just interpret discoveries by other people, using philosophy/logic that is skewed by their world view/presuppositions. 2.) Atheists have never really understood their own very mantra of " Extraordinary claims call for extraordinary evidence". The claims of the Christian Bible can be proven...but not by scientific methods, because , these are not natural/normal claims about natural/physical beings(realities).The Scientific Method does not apply in this situation.And yes, it is a completely different set of circumstances that greatly influence the physical universe, but are spiritual and completely different. For proof of God of The Christian Bible, follow the prescription in John 14:21 .Just remember that it is an individual endeavor. Each person has to follow the proscribed policies and procedures ( for THEMSELVES) ...As many people arrive at the the same conclusion that there is indeed a God as portrayed in The Christian Bible, this will be your confirmation that the procedure is reproducible( you seem to like that criterion) This very simple process has been repeated by every single true believer in The God of the Christian Bible.It really doesn't get any more corroborated than that! Biblical Christianity is a very simple thing to prove.In fact God designed it that way, so that we do not need years of special training, nether do we need some one else to prove it and post it on You Tube...Some times atheists insinuate that madness. Further more, Biblical Christianity is very intellectual,It is not blind faith.,The true Christian is a satisfied skeptic, not a blind believer.Just remember : There are thousands of religions out there, but only one true religion. There are millions of gods( the Hindi alone have 33 million) , but only one God. There are billions of worshipers, and > 2 billion professing Christians, but sadly, far fewer true Christians. Please, try not to get confused.Stay focused on one of them, at a time.Take my Biblical God for example, and go for Him, okay? Patrick O'Brian, may be you can to tell me this; Why is it that atheists who decline to take the John 14:21 challenge either because they never knew about it, or...they just elected not to(for what ever reason)...why do they think that Christians must " bring some proof of the atheist's choosing... to The Almighty Atheist "? I mean, think about it for a moment, will you?The Christian Bible claims that The Salvation Package is like a treasure , which a man discovers in a field.He sells everything to purchase this field.So why should I bother taking my hard-earned proof, to an atheists?Did you know that I do not have to present any proselyte in order to gain admission into heaven,? I will suggest that before you attempt to dismiss any claims made in the Christian Bible, first familiarize yourself with what the Christian Bible actually says. How ever, if you are just interested in arguing about the (non-) existence of some generic god, then you have come to the wrong person.I cannot help you with that exercise.
2/2: Even if "it" carries a depersonalizing connotation (in English, by which God is evidently constrained), surely "he" also has its own baggage, which God seems eager to reinforce. God is a "father" who fixates on patriarchal bloodlines (through which sin can be passed, which also seems to depersonalize our relationships with God). (Again, I'm intentionally sticking with Platinga's presumed God, not others. Talking about all possible gods would be like trying to nail J-ello to a wall.)
I have just one question: What is God? can you at least define it before arguing it's existence? I've seen many videos in this channel about this and you people talk as if it was a well defined concept, which is not.
That's part of the trick: they keep their definitions vague and loose enough to change them every time they generate contraddictions. Like Plantinga did with the concept of "omnipotence", which he redefined (from the classical notion of being able to do "any all thing" into just being able to do "everything that's LOGICALLY POSSIBLE") just to bypass the paradox of logics that the old concept creates (4:40). ...and by the way: claiming that god's power are limited to what is 'logically' possible, would mean that logics is superior to him.
***** "He can't violate his nature" Therefore he's not all powerful. Every time theists define in a less vague way their alleged 'deity' some new contraddiction emerges. By the way: If you're talking about the mass murdering god described in the bible, I won't say that he's good, nor that he acts in a logical way.
***** "Do you understand what "perfect" means?" It's just a term created by human minds. like omnipotence, omniscience, etc... The point is that similar concepts generate many contraddictions, like the ones pointed out in this same video. My original comment is exactly about this: those concepts create obvious logical contraddictions, and religious apologists dishonestly change the definitions of their 'god' just to fix those contraddictions. In other words: they're not even able to give us a coherent definition of their alleged deity ...let alone giving a shred of evidence about his existence! ;-) "Like I said more dead babies done by humans than by God in the OT" I could play your same 'show me the statistics' game, but that's not necessary, since even if we admit that man made aborts are more than the murdering made by your god in the bible (which i sincerely doubt about, since in Noah's times he killed every single form of life on the planet, excepting the very few ones on the arch), your god would always be the INDIVIDUAL killer with the highest murdering record in history (and quite ironically that's just in his 'Holy book'). In any case: did you know that the most of abortions are the spontaneous ones? In other words: the ones which your god operates by himself, without any intervention from human will. rationalwiki.org/wiki/Spontaneous_abortion_in_humans Not only YOUR GOD IS the greatest killer that human history has ever known, but he's EVEN THE GREATEST ABORTIONIST! :D
Jonathan Carreño "G"od is the greatest conceivable being. Think of an alien race that has more power, knowledge, presense and morally superiority than we do. Now think of an alien race that is better than that, then do it again, again and again. you will end up with an alien race that is perfect in power, knowledge, presence and morality (Great making properties). This is just a concept in order for it to exist you have to find someone claiming to be this being and compare the concept to the claim.
1) What colossal evidence? 2) Examples? 3) Your knowledge-defeating-free-will argument is good (and shows that omniscience is compatible with free will) but I pointed out free will is only half of the formula, in that sense. Christianity believes God desires all men to be saved but that He purposes they enter into a relationship with Him freely via love. Entering via love cannot be forced via knowledge. Is it still unclear?
It is fascinating to me that throughout the entire conversation, nothing necessitates any specific religion's claimed deity -- it could as easily describe the Muslim God or the Mormon God or the Jewish God or the Hindu God. Or it could describe the Creator as envisioned in Pandeism....
You're right since Alvin Plantinga wasn't attempting to describe any specific God belonging to a specific religion. The purpose of this clip was to address potential objections raised against the existence of a generic God. Given the purpose, it shouldn't really shock anyone that no description of God was given to support a specific religion.
A maximally great being would have true scriptures, if it needed such things to convey its message in the first place. So let us do a little bible study: *Matthew 17;20* _NIV_ *20* _He replied, "Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."_ *matthew 18;19-20* _NIV_ *19* _“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven._ *20* _For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”_ *Matthew 21;21-22* _NIV_ *21* _Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done._ *22* _If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”_ *Mark 11;23-24* _NIV_ *23* _“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them._ *24* _Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours._ *John 14;12-14* _NIV_ *12* _Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father._ *13* _And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son._ *14* _You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it._ All of these scriptures from your bible say _"Truly I tell you."_ They are all supposedly quotes from a demigod that couldn't lie like a normal person, and since _"Truly"_ means "In accordance with fact" and it does not mean "Symbolically" or "Metaphorically" or "Allegorically" we should be able to trust what they say. matthew 17;20 puts a limit on these scriptures: *Faith.* I posit that if you believe in any of the supernatural occurrences detailed in the christian bible, you have plenty of faith. I posit that if you believe that an obviously fictional, obviously evil being as yahweh is both real and good, based on your faith, you have more faith than you'll ever need to do what comes next. These scriptures would indicate (To anyone reading them with a shred of honesty) that prayer _always_ works: _“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven."_ _"If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”_ _"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."_ _"You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it."_ They also indicate that prayer can accomplish the impossible: _"Nothing will be impossible for you."_ _“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them."_ If these were the words of a maximally great being's demigod, they should be true, so let us test prayer: 1: Grab a christian friend _(“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.")_ and a video camera. 2: Find an amputee. 3: Turn on the camera. 4: Both of you -Wish upon a star- Pray that this amputee regrows their lost limb/s. Be sure to pray in the name of your demigod. _(Very truly I tell you… You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.)_ I posit that a maximally great being would re-grow an amputee's lost limbs when petitioned to do so, because helping people is greater than not helping them, and a real, functioning, natural limb is greater than any prosthetic made by men. Any _excuse_ or _dodge_ is your admission that your god will not restore that poor amputee, and thus is not maximally great, and therefor does not have to exist. It would also be an admission that your demigod is either a liar that hates amputees, or (more likely) it never existed in the first place. Good luck, christians!
My best summary is: How does the mere existence of evil prove God doesn't exist? Also, how does it show that he doesn't have a good reason for it existing? He answers with a question, because it's really up to an atheist to prove that the existence of evil implies there is no good God. As a Catholic Christian, I find it easy to understand that God gave us free choice from the beginning of our race. That choice has led our first ancestors (called Adam and Eve in the allegory of creation) to choose their own evil desires over God's desires, and that choice influenced everyone descended from them. That's "original sin." That brought all suffering/evil into the world. God did not directly cause it, but He did allow our choices to bring evil into His creation.
@michael o'grady - You are asking me to explain the universe. My honest answer: I don't know. Even the experts don't know all the answers concerning the universe. And they maybe never will. I can live with that. But saying 'we don't know exactly how the universe as we know it came to be, so God made it' is an argument from ignorance. As I said earlier: The existence of the universe itself is not proof of 'God' or 'gods'. You should first come up with better (that is positive) evidence for deities in general. Only after that we can have a meaningful conversation about their role in the (making of the) universe.
LOL You can not like the argument but is powerful for the universe to exist we need to posit either an incredibly powerful agent and/or one incredible act of miracle that moves away from chaos to "beginning" of universe. So the existence of universe IS evidence of SOME kind of agent or event - whether we call it God is open to question but all the models show no promise if explaining why the universe exists except by just saying it happened. Where is the flaw in the argument of Alvin's? I don't see any.
* Not only are we not aware of any minds that do not come from a brain but physics as we currently understand it seems to preclude such a thing from even being possible at all. * Lumping all theists together is disingenuous as the worlds theists disagree with each other sometimes to the point of violence because they believe in very different gods. * Arguing that people who disagree with you are mentally deficient is an ad hominem fallacy. * problem of evil, he really didn't say anything. * Limiting god's power to what's logically possible is just moving the goalposts. Based on what they say its also not what most Christians actually believe. * The Inefficiency bit is again saying nothing. * Our tendency to project human like characteristics onto the environment around us is pretty well established. And we have this tendency because we are a social species and our brains evolved to put interactions with other humans front and center. This leads us to want to expalin things that happen, as being willed by some agent hence we start believing in spirits and eventually gods.
from a photon to the overwhelming expanse of universe, an atheist's blind heart can not see His signs just as he can not tell us (out of scientific discovery) wherefrom all this came, nor has an atheist scientist been able so far to CREATE a photon out of nothing.
God is the one who introduced sin into the world....then condemns the sinner...this is drivel and bs...... And why is god considered a he? This guy is not arguing anything....he is being dismissive.
No, he did not introduce sin into the world. To sin means „to miss the target“, in other words to reject God and disobey him. Rejecting a maximally great being means to reject goodness itself in some form which is what the first man did. All God dis was give him the ability to make a choice. As for why God is considered a he, he doesn't exactly have a gender. He is given that pronoun simply because it is more fitting for him. But sometimes he's also described through feminine metaphors, like mother bear protecting her cubs.
I think evil is a product of us having free choice to choose God or reject him, which in itself comes by love.love needs to be chosen not forced to choose we need an option and all choices have consequence thus evil
Can see how Alvin Plantinga just repels all these arrows like a giant brick wall. That's amazing considering the context in which he has brought God back into the scene in his time where positivism and these atheistic presuppositions were all the rage.
In an effort to keep the discussion manageable (on YT), let's stick to hiddenness for now (but first a little on omniscience). From the fact that God foreknows He will do X, you can be sure that X will happen. But it doesn’t follow that it will happen necessarily. It could fail to happen, but it won’t. If it were to fail to happen, then God wouldn’t have foreknown X. His foreknowing it doesn’t determine it or render it necessary. On hiddenness, see next comment.
@@Lamster66 actually that's not true according to most historians even atheists the story of Jesus resurrection is quite unique to him those stories that you bring up were added much later take Odin for instance Odin was out in hundreds of years after Jesus. The only resurrection that some Scholars debate about is baal from the Canaanite religion. But even then it wasn't really a resurrection I want to come to Jesus's resurrection is very unique. So yes those myths you think this proves Jesus actually don't do added much later to pagan gods and even Egyptian historians Indian historians Greek historians all agree that those myths were added much later on. You've been watching you can watch a TH-camr called inspiringphilosophy he has a whole playlist dedicated to it.
@@Lamster66 how is it a good laugh what makes a laughing joke it's quite a serious topic grow up. Anyway Jesus to resurrect Resurrection story for Jesus was quite unique of the time you bring up how other gods resurrected well sorry to burst your bubble but that's not fully true those lips were added much later on according to most historians Egyptian Scholars who study people like Osiris raw the Egyptian gods have stated multiple times that Osiris did not resurrect nor was there no virgin birth it's a raping story. Jesus very unique according to the use of his time in the Messiah was supposed to die obviously if you read the scriptures like Paul and Matthew and all them did you understand that he did I was supposed to why did Paul and Matthew quote the Old Testament so often. Also would make any sense in them to make up a resurrection they're beaten horribly everyone was Paul was Shipwrecked for days he was beat with a Roman flag of a Taurus skin apart use cast to see four days thrown in prison we know that actually happened to Paul there's no story who doubt any of that. Also his resurrection would make sense if they lied and of course the evidence in Wind sound like they were lying Apostle consignee misunderstood Jesus and he even told about the resurrection even Paul saw Jesus went back in the old scriptures and found properties what he supposed to die and resurrect people say Isaiah 53 does not mean Messiah but it does consignee Isaiah says he will take our sins his burden he is a lamb and even Asian Jews believe that was that Isaiah 53 I can get in the more detail if you want about how Jesus did resurrect
Okay, God "EXISTS" but if so, then what the hell is he made of? Because if he's not made of something then he's no-thing and can't exist! What is Good made of?
This life is a test, human beings are given a certain amount of free will that is the tendency to do good and evil on the basis of which they will be judged. God also has free will yet he did his part, human beings have to do their part the right way and that is what the test is...
This guy came highly touted and he has nothing. On top of that he totally switches the burden of proof and the interviewer doesn't challenge it. I'll take Tielhard as at least to be taken seriously.
Plantinga is a classic example of an emperor with no clothes. What's interesting is that so many people almost a decade ago were impressed by the mental masturbation of Plantinga. Now more and more people see it for the irrational and illogical nonsense that it is.
I think that by posing the questions as "What do the arguments against God get wrong?" the interviewer framed the issue as a false dichotomy. Moreover, I think some of his questions were directed at topics that are often met with arguments from ignorance (i.e., a God of the Gaps)... not that I've heard any "pro-God" arguments I think have merit.
It's not that "there is no such thing as a disembodied mind". Instead it's "Disembodied mind" is like "the taste of blue". It doesn't make a lick of sense. It's just words put together.
the reality is a lot of people don’t want god to exist. We don’t want an authority over us. Is it reasonable to not believe in god, of course. But if you are truly honest with yourself and listen to the rational logical arguments you should come to possible conclusion he exists, whether you want it to be true or not. All the atheist comments seem to be angry bitter people who won’t listen to any argument because they don’t want god to exist.
I think I've responded to both of those points elsewhere, so I'll let those threads continue separately (if at all) rather than duplicating them here. Aside from that, I apologize for the "genius" comment and any other obnoxiousness. I too was a bit put off by your tone, but that's a poor excuse. In any case, much of it seems to have arisen from misunderstanding. I think we generally agree or, as you have suggested, see the other's point or intent.
Plantinga is often put forward as an example of a philosophically respectable religious believer, one whose arguments represent the best that theistic apologetics has to offer. I'm writing this out just to remind myself that that's the case, because the video above, and the arguments made by Plantinga therein, are so startlingly weak and lazy it's difficult to believe that this is the same person. You have to keep reminding yourself that this is a professional philosopher - the surreal mixture of special pleading, appeals to mystery and clumsy leaps from conjecture to certainty is so shockingly poor an attempt at religious rationalisation that my final reaction was not even disappointment: it was puzzlement. The 'sensus divinitatis' argument in particular is so odd I do wonder whether Plantinga was being entirely serious when he made it. In the swirl of dreadful arguments the only one that was merely 'debatable', as opposed to 'worthless', or 'bizarre', was the refutation of the argument from the contradiction of omnipotence, in which Plantinga makes the reasonable point that God is incapable of the logically contradictory. In terms of credible arguments that really is it. The rest is stunningly poor. As an agnostic atheist I clearly am not convinced by any of the religious arguments for God's existence, but I can at least recognise when an apologist makes the best of what is available to him. Whether or not you enjoy it, it's generally a good thing, a healthy thing, to have to deal with your opponent's best case. This video, on the other hand, was bafflingly poor. Deeply disappointing and ever-so-slightly surreal.
The Sprawl Plantinga goes into a lot more detail and formal analysis in his academic papers and books, so i think it's safe to assume that the format of the interview contributes to the somewhat incomplete and rudimentary explanations. Moreover, there may be an assumption that such interviews are to be watched mainly by people with varying backgrounds, many of whom may not have had preparation in formal/modal logic, so while it would be interesting to see him at his best, it might prove to be unintelligible even for people that are interested in philosophy of religion.
Don't you think it would make more sense to base your opinion on him if you read one of his books instead of watching a 12 minute video that is not at all meant to be an in depth explication of his views?
Since any semi-literate moron can post anything without any consequence these days I'll spell it out for you. Not all theologians agree with Plantinga's concept of God. However, almost all respect the fact that he is an impeccable logician and that there are only a handful of people in the world that can do more than just sweat it out with him in a debate using analytic philosophy. His philosophical argument where he defends darwinian evolution and uses it as an argument against metaphysical naturalism is original and brilliant, and has been praised even by several atheists with more than rudimentary training in philosophy.
Tracchofyre I think almost all working philosophers would be very surprised to learn that metaphysical realism is dead. No doubt in its naive forms it has been found wanting, but almost all forms of "metaphysical" anti-realism or instrumentalism are viewed as ultimately irrational and self defeating, no matter how fancy the rhetoric is. The idea that "realism" in any form is dead is a pernicious postmodern myth.
Tracchofyre I also find it strange that you bring up Kuhn as bringing about the death of metaphysical realism. Outside of Philosophy of Science, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is not taken very seriously. (It's not even well known to philosophers outside that very particular and specific discipline). It is an influential work that has contributed to the decline of naive forms of realism in the philosophy of science. Kuhn himself would not be so audacious to claim that it did anything more than that.
To be honest, those who show disrespect for people by being derisive of the opinions, and without a sincere and respect for the time required for depth to be achieved, should please think again before judging this comment. Because we are not here to have the right answer. If we had a right answer and knew with certainty of its correctness, then nobody would be questioning these things. It takes a really large ego to think that God's existence has been disproved after millenia of philosophical debate from all philosophical traditions which has not yet led to complete consensus. Call me whatever names helps you to justify your distaste for God in your own mind - that will never solve the suffering you feel from the inner frustration brought about by the word 'God'...
David Spades Well. Isn't that the point? It often way easier to destroy someone's arguments than to prove them. Especially when you can't know the answer. Easy example : Nobody knows how many stars there is in the whole universe( not only the observable one). But I can easily know that if someone is saying ''there is no star'' that he is clearly wrong. The fact that you can't know how many stars there is doesn't prevent you to know that this person has the wrong answer. Available informations, although insufficient to know the answer, is sufficient to destroy his answer. Now, if you're waiting for a consensus about God, good luck...
David Spades Well. Isn't that the point? It often way easier to destroy someone's arguments than to prove them. Especially when you can't know the answer. Easy example : Nobody knows how many stars there is in the whole universe( not only the observable one). But I can easily know that if someone is saying ''there is no star'' that he is clearly wrong. The fact that you can't know how many stars there is doesn't prevent you to know that this person has the wrong answer. Available informations, although insufficient to know the answer, is sufficient to destroy his answer. Now, if you're waiting for a consensus about God, good luck...
A wise kind incredibly honest and one of the greatest philosophers of our current time.
Jotun Heim
You fail to realize your own theist ignorance and so applaud him for being as stupid as you are.
Only NUTBALL christians think that.
rstevewarmorycom its wishful thinking to believe that reality and the debate between theism and atheism is that black and white. You only have to look at the great philosopher Anthony Flew who rejected atheism after 50 yrs of developing the best arguments against theism. I think that a lot of people are not aware of, or choose to ignore, the political, cultural and historical context required to give a truthful account of the value and validity of religious experience and belief. Whilst there are sophisticated epistemological and ontological arguments from both sides of the argument there is equally a lot of bigoted misinformation out there on both sides that people choose to take as factual. Sadly, history shows us that there have been examples of great evil and stupidity on both sides of the argument. Hence the creation of things such as the atomic bomb by mad scientists and communist atheist Russia under which millions died and terrorism by religious fanatics, crusades etc. Should we judge the atheist belief system and all atheists by the actions of atheist Russia.. Off course not. We will continue to nake the same mistakes as our ancestors unless we respect each other and are able to have honest debate and informed choice and freedom. People have the right to choose a belief system that they feel gives them meaning purpose and a sense of joy in life as long as it does not impinge on other peoples human rights We need more understanding and humility in the world not more ignorance, bigotry and prejudice.
@@georgedoyle7971
Flew became dotty or senile. It was sad to see all his previous arguments vanish in the disorder. His turn of stance didn't deal with any of his previous arguments from when he was younger, it was as though he had forgotten them altogether. This is what is sad.
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Religion is all made-up shit. It is as though we had invented a pleasing fable, but then we forgot that it was we who had invented it, and began asking one another whether it was real and where it had come from. And we still have all the beauty and humility and understanding in the whole world even if we had never invented that fable. You're wrong, people do NOT "choose" their belief system, instead they are threatened into it. And we make all meaning for our lives, no imaginary fable actually does that. Russia was demonized by the western capitalists as the touch stone of their brainwashing of youth and their propaganda in the west. In point of fact, according to poll, most Russians today long for most of the benefits of that society that they have lost. And it was never atheism that Russians dispensed with, as many as 55% of them LIKE atheism and are atheist to this day. Only the old and ignorant, uneducated and potty have lamely revived the orthodox church. Atheist Europe now does not suffer from any lack of tolerance, but perhaps far too much of it.
@@rstevewarmorycom You arent going to win many hearts and minds by being so abrasive. I mostly agree with you but you are being a massive dick about it
Sir,
Several years ago a kid of mine caused a car accident that took his life and the life of a young lady in another car. I was completely and utterly devastated. I fell into a deep depression. That depression worried my wife intensely. She sought out help for me.
I went to a camp. And in that camp were some very smart theological counselors who where psychiatrist as well.
The whole time I was there I really couldn’t sleep very well. One night I quietly got up not to disturb anyone else and walked outside. I thought I had walked far enough away from the camp that no one would hear me. But one of the counselors heard me crying. He asked what troubled me. I told him and in the dark I could see him nodding his head understandingly. His answer shook me to my core and still does to this very day. “Why do you assume he was your child, alone? You and your wife made the physical body, now I ask you, where did his soul come from? It takes three to make thee.”
Then I asked him not really expecting an answer, “He took another life and I am worried about the soul that God made.” His answer came without hesitation, “Who are you to question how, why or when anyone is called home.”
By the time the sun come up I was on my way to recovery.
Some may call this a incomplete answer. To which I would say, perhaps. But it was enough for me then and it still is enough for me now.
Sincerely,
Robert
Thank you for sharing this
"Who are you to question...?"
We are thinking and feeling beings. It's what we do. Missing people we love or just enjoy is a strong feeling and something that comes naturally for most. Why do people argue in favor of some cosmic overlord who has no needs or worries as we do? It's ludicrous.
I find it sad to see so many angry comments that seem to purely dismiss this man, and anything he has to say. I do know that he is widely respected among professors of philosophy, and not just among those philosophers that happen to have a belief in God. It seems that a more sensible form of argumentation would be to list a point you disagree with, and then explain why. It seems there is just a lot of unreasonable dismissal and derogatory name calling happening. It is very sad to see because it makes the discussion go absolutely nowhere.
He's angrily dismissed by most because none of his answers were worthy of anything but ridicule and scorn. It's as simple as that.
sevven1 So you've read his work? Have you read Warranted Christian Belief? Please give me a careful examination of his concept of "warrant" and why you think it isn't valuable.
Voyaging123 I couldn't care less how well written his book is or how eloquent his arguments may be, because, ultimately (and obviously), they're poisoned with superstitious and delusional thinking. Lol! His position might as well be that the tooth fairy is real!
I can therefore dismiss "his work" as meaningless religious drivel and be completely comfortable with it.
***** LOL! Yes, I most certainly can, and will, dismiss his "work" because it's religious (superstitious) in nature!! And, no, I don't need to address any arguments he makes for any superstitious belief system being factual and true!! And.. I've already shown why I think they're not "sound" by explaining that he's arguing for superstition!! What is it about this that you're not getting?? And what is it with this "you need to" shit?? I don't "need to" do anything. I'm not making any incredible claims. I'm merely sticking with reality, and that which can be proven as fact.
***** No, it is you who doesn't understand how logic works. If the question is: Does god exist? Those who assert a god does exist, must provide evidence for having made such an extraordinary claim. Those who do not believe such a being exists need not provide any explanation for their skepticism.
After all, if it were the other way around, one would be forever burdened with trying to disprove the existence of every imaginable sort of fantastic and non-existent creature..
If you cannot realize and/or accept that religion is superstitious thinking, that's your problem, not mine.
Just as I can assume the ancient Israeli mountain god that christianity co-opted and transformed into an invisible sky god doesn't exist, I can also assume unicorns, werewolves, vampires, leprechauns and fairies also do not exist. My assumptions are based on rational thinking and the reality that surrounds us all, not superstitious thinking - which is at the base of all religions.
I pity you. It must be awful living in such a warped and unpredictable universe..
When good things happen to Men, its God the first they forget, when bad happen to Men, its God the first they blame.
Zatoichiable Atheists do not blame something that they don't believe exists, that would be ridiculous
"blame"? Yes! at minimum, they criticize "believers" for believing in a God that allows evil, etc.
Alternatively when good things happen to Men, its God the first they credit, & when bad happen to Men, its God they are least likely to question.
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
Epicurus
Logic / Reason / Evidence
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
First of all, if God is willing to prevent evil but not able, then it would be true that he is not omnipotent. But this would mean that he is not the God of the Bible since the God of the Bible does whatever he desires to do (Eph. 1:11).
Second, Epicurus offers no definition for evil. Therefore, how can his assertion be validated? It can't. How would someone, say an atheist, define evil and also justify the definition as being the right one? Is evil unnecessary suffering? Is it murder but not stealing a paperclip? Is it a famine, an earthquake, bad thoughts, and/or wrong motives? Again, without defining what evil is, the validity of the statements cannot be properly assessed.
Third, after a definition is offered, and hopefully justified, we can then ask to what degree ought God prevent evil? Should God prevent mass starvation, but not the theft of a paperclip? Who decides where the boundary is drawn? What about a person's evil thoughts and intentions? Should God prevent those from occurring as well and thus violate a person's free will? Is that okay? If so, why? If not, why not?
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
This objection presupposes that if God can prevent evil, then he should. But why ought God stop evil (all evil?) from happening? Just saying so does not make it so. Furthermore, the second assertion presupposes a kind of moral absolute; namely, that evil ought to be prevented by anyone who is able to prevent it. We must ask, from where is such a universal moral absolute obtained? Is it made up by people? Is it voted on? Or is it just assumed, by faith, to be true? This is important because this second assertion presupposes a moral absolute. So how do we validate the moral assertion? Is it by intuition? If so, how do we know the intuition is right? Is it by logic? Then what logical syllogism or deduction is used that necessitates such moral obligation?
In addition, there are questions we would have to ask that are related to this second assertion. Could it be that God can use evil for a greater good, as would be exemplified in the evil of the crucifixion by which people are redeemed? Could it be that the freedom God allows people to have also means that they must have the freedom to choose to do what is bad? This would mean that he desires people not to do evil, but that he also desires that they be free to do that which is contrary to God; namely, evil.
Also, could it be that God would have reasons to allow evil that we do not understand? After all, he's greater than us and he understands things in a way that we do not, and we are not privy to his scope of knowledge. Therefore, it is possible that he could have reasons to allow evil that we cannot understand.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
If God is both able and willing to stop evil, but chooses not to stop all evil, that means God has allowed evil to exist. As is stated above, there are many aspects to this issue of allowing evil, including free will, the degree of evil, the definition of evil, how much evil ought God stop, etc.
Biblically speaking, evil originated in the heart and mind of Lucifer who decided to rebel against God. It was he who acted as though he "lacked belief in God," when he did not trust in God's wisdom and declarations but instead behaved in a manner that is consistent with independence from God.
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
We should call him God because he is God. Also, as is stated in the previous paragraphs the issue of ability and willingness to prevent evil should not be taken as isolated assertions without context, further examination, or establishing some moral contexts (definition of evil, levels of evil, kinds of evil, how much evil to prevent) by which the assertions can be properly evaluated. Since this fourth assertion is built upon the previous three, and the previous three are in no way conclusive, then the fourth cannot be trusted as being a valid couplet.
@@DaBestSquigma preventing evil would both preserve and prevent free will. If god stops a man from raping a woman, he protected her free will at the cost of his free will, for a net free will of zero. Apart from that, your argument doesn't address "natural evil" god could prevent, like plagues and floods
This is crazy. Plantinga is awesome.
@Van Smack Just like your comment.
@Van Smack is this an argument against Plantinga's argument?
@Van Smack anyone in the scientific community? Hard to chew bro.
@Van Smack Existence of GOD.. yea. thats hard. I cannot prove your existence. I have to accept you exist solely based on your comment. is this a bot on the other end? Speak to me Bot.. Speak. No Its not a bot, but its Van Smack tryna smack sam. I have to believe you exist on the other end of the communication and now can argue your existence based on solely what you have communicated to me? I am not you. So, i have to prove that you exist cause i know experientially now that you exist. And one more thing. If you send me your picture or, if you just visit and meet me and say that you are Van smack and you leave. I have to write a book about you to skeptics and other people who wish to know you with the available tech that i got and share it with the world of Van smack haters and lovers. replace Van smack wth Christ and you get the Christian msg.
@Van Smack wait let me pack my boxing gloves. Tell me where do you live?
When we had God “in our face”, either as a wondrous sign, or in the flesh as in Jesus, we still rejected him. We don’t have a lack of belief because of lack of evidence, we reject him because we are sinful and fallen. We want to think we can have the moral authority to dictate our lives and or we love our sins too much.
I 👉 Absolutely 👈Agree with you!!! You've said it basically in a👉Nut👈🙏👉She'll👈🙏🤗👋❣️🌹
I would have to respectfully disagree. There are instances of "non-resistant, non-believers" (I include myself here) who genuinely wish to believe in God but cannot because the evidence for his existence isn't compelling enough. See J.L. Schellenberg's Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason. (1993)
Well said man
@@wpankey57 the only thing stopping you is you. No matter what we say only you can change your mind.
@Christian: No one thought Jesus was a god until after he died, when people had to explain how it could be that that supposed "anointed one" (a returning king of the Jews) had been publicly humiliated via crucifixion. There's no record of him having been buried, especially not in an individual tomb, given that the common practice at the time was to leave the bodies on the crosses for several days, then dump the cadavers in a mass grave, thus depriving them of a proper Jewish burial.
You believe in myths constructed long after Jesus died.
Grateful for this great Christian thinker.
His humility is telling, our biggest problem is that we somewhat think we know or understand everything, and it’s not a cop out, it’s a fact we don’t know everything, not to say therefore God but just the fact that we just don’t know so inferences to the best explanation are crucial
It is really encouraging to see intellectual intelligence people defend faith.
There's a ton of edgy people here in the comments.
You must mean normal people, not deluded religious idiots?
@Little Delicious
Oooooh, edddgggeeeeeeey.
@@rstevewarmorycom I am someone that thinks there are hardly any "normal" people out there. More likely ignorant and sinful people are out there.
@@rstevewarmorycom How did you reach this conclusion then? So normal people comes from the "norm" which in turn comes from social construct, so the normal people are those who believe in God, so you just stupidly shot yourself in the foot, didn't you?
Second point, what is it that you think you know that a religious idiot doesn't?
Name one thing.
Normal: Is an expected behaviour, many studies that were carried out confirmed that it is natural and healthy for us to believe in God, what you meant to say is the normal people vs the twisted little abnormal so called atheists who don't even have one argument to support their own belief, who are driven by their emotions and psychologically bruised.
Some atheist was asked what if you met God after you die, he said, I will tell him to go to hell, if that's not an irrational and emotional reaction I don't know what is, this is what I call an idiot and you seem to subscribe to the same ridiculousness as this guy, which shows that 99% of your arguments are emotionally driven and that's why you always result into insults and aggressive behaviours, name calling etc.. It's because you're insecure in your own belief.
rstevewarmorycom typical atheistard...
speculations don't bring you closer to truth they just leave you in a fog of uncertainty. You realize God through the one thing that is most intimate about you that is related to God, and that would be your consciousness because truth is something realized not seen.
Yeah, I feel him, he is my friend, therefore, my imaginary friend exists. Great argument... NOT
@Chris Eggleton Yes, when John said, "your word is truth " it begs to question, what is the nature of truth? Since truth can be defined as " that which is realized to be true " and since realization depends on consciousness the foundation of truth is consciousness ( I AM ) and being a supreme absolute person God must be the ultimate realizer of truth.
When he describes his experience - these arguments not having much impact on him (except for evil) - keep in mind, this man has been reading the bible, praying, being in church, "walking with God" since he was a teenager. He is "bonded" deeply to the God he is talking about. He's not being arrogant when he describes his experience. And he's very gifted in philosophy/theology. The rest of us who also believe and want to be Christians might still struggle a bit more than him. But I think he's being genuine and actually honest when he says what he says. The book published by P&R by Greg Welty on Plantinga presents him as sincere and humble with regard to his faith and experience of God.
Manages to use two arguments that directly contradict one another in a three-minute span.
Why would God create a universe that seems so vast, inefficient, and random?
7:45 "Arguments of that sort all presume that the arguer knows what God would like, or what God would want to be the case... and there's no reason to think that we know those things."
How do we know believe in God isn't simply wish fulfillment?
10:13 Maybe it is, because God "would want us to know about him" and maybe wish fulfillment is just the ticket to get us to believe.
So we can't know what God wants (which is why it's no problem at all believing that an all-good, all-powerful god created a world that contains horrifying, pointless suffering) until we can (because he would definitely want us to know about him, even if he has to take the bizarrely oblique route of literally tricking us into believing the truth through - once again - intense suffering).
Mehhh
A "wish" is a desire. We desire what we believe we are missing and when attained will make us more complete. If God does exist and our essence is a part of God, then it would he natural for us to "desire" to reunite with God, where this "desire" is built into us...
And if god is a stupid abusive fantasy, then our desire is stupid.
@@rstevewarmorycom
I agree but "stupid abusive fantasy".....wow! Did you learn these big big complex for first time that you are using it? That sentence literally makes absolutely no sense.
At 11:15 Kuhn asks Plantinga "Do you ever have any doubts?" Am I the only one who finds Plantinga's answer really really unsatisfying, even evasive?
His arguments are not circular, because his argument's conclusions are not "There is a God." Most times, his argument's conclusion is that belief in God is rational, or something like that.
+Danny M I don't know if its rational, but its entirely human to want to believe in a higher power that somehow makes amends for the tumultuous life we experience. A bit deluded, but I can see why humans would believe in such a thing.
@Ruben Rojas
Imaginary problem with an imaginary god, sounds like a psychotic delusion.
@@dannym8934
Distinction without a difference.
@@dannym8934 This challenges the definition of the word rational for me. If there's no god then belief in a god isn't rational. If the argument is you had an individual experience of god and that makes your own individual belief in god rational only to you I can understand this but then what bridges the connection between individual experience and rationality, that is what makes one individuals experience of god to themselves more rational than anothers individual experience of being abducted by aliens or another individuals experience of vishnu or another persons experience of a ghost? I need help.
Towards the end even Plantinga acknowledges the force of the argument
Called the problem of evil.
Is this true:
Spice exists
An all sugar being would eliminate all spice
Therefore an all powerful all sugar being does not exist
@@alpacamaster5992 thats a strawman...thats not the problem of evil.
@@alpacamaster5992 spice & evil cannot be equivocated. False equivocation fallacy
@@louisuchihatm2556 an all good being would do what ever it can to create as much good even if allowing some evil;an all good being can allow evil to create good
@@alpacamaster5992 an all powerful being can create a world where good is experienced without evil!
If god really did plant knowledge of himself in all humans, why did he make this knowledge so vague that the vast majority of humans that ever lived worshiped the wrong gods. Being omniscient, one can only conclude that for some bizarre reason he wanted it this way
Saying that the knowledge of God is so vague just seems to suggest that it could be anything. It doesn't seem to be bizarre that God had reasons to be present everywhere in Nature. It's simply one doesn't acknowledge its logical possibility.
You can see it similarly to reality. We all have knowledge of reality but we model reality differently.
If being alive and well are miracles from God then, all people are alive and well but homeless, poor and sick are blessed with miracles. If all evil deeds are God allowing free will, then evil people are certainly exercising their free will to the full extent. If having to accept all of the above, then what is the use of prayers because praying to get out of poverty, illness and evil doesn't work.
Nothing said here, brought me any closer to believing in a god.
Try Flaming Wings And Swords Ministry here on TH-cam. Maybe something said there brings you closer to God 🙂❤🙏
That’s because all Plantinga is doing is sidestepping the objections. Saying that he doesn’t find the atheist objections to the various “omni” claims aren’t persuasive to him just means he’s not paying attention. Those “Omni” objections exist to show that the way the Christians use language to describe their god is incoherent. And we bring those objections to so that the Christians can come up with a more coherent definition for the things they say they believe in. Now, the hesitance of a theist to take seriously the need to have a coherent definition for the thing they say is the most important thing in the world, is very telling. It’s almost as if they know that if they try to think and speak clearly about their god, they will realize they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about, and that the only way to resolve the contradictions is to abandon some important aspect of their belief. So they REALLY don’t want to think clearly. And they don’t want others to, either.
@@ahgflyguy I note that the Muslim and Christian apologetics constantly use philosophy as thier proof of god.
A good start for a theory, but it needs way more work.
They still seem to jump to therefore god pretty quickly, but they also claim that the god of the gaps arguement has been refuted.
Which tells me that they are desperately clinging to faith alone.
I am quite happy for them to believe in god on faith alone.
But they should be honest enough to admit that.
@@user-pt6ug5ug3m If you can get them to be honest enough to admit that they believe on faith- that is, in spite of evidence and not because of evidence- then you could probably get them to admit that there’s no position they COULDN’T take based on faith. And then they might realize they’re deluding themselves. And I think that’s why their faith defense mechanisms evolved to always distract them away from discussing why they believe, in particular what would have to change for them to NOT believe.
@@ahgflyguy I find that more Christians read atheist literature like Dawkins, Hitchens etc than I find atheists who read Thomas Aquinas, Alvin platinga or Blaise Pascal or even C.S. Lewis.
Show me a church or hospital God built. When you get seriously sick which do you go to first? Why?
We would not have the churches OR hospitals that we do if it wasn't for our Judeo-Christian roots. Tom Holland (the philosopher) has discussed this extensively with regard to the impact of Christianity on Western society.
@ they don’t teach religion in med school.
Many of these arguments are regarding a particular type of God, not God
martin smith
There is no such thing as some one god.
No it assumes God as traditionally defined - all powerful and all good.
Yeah, for a Hindu there is no "Divine Hideness" problem, this is only make sense against Christians and Muslims
No one disputes that poorly evidenced propositions are capable of being true. The question is whether we have any particular reason for supposing them to be true. In other words, insufficient evidence bears not on the abstract truth of a proposition, but on its justifiable believability. As Bertrand Russell pointed out, it may be abstractly true that there is a teapot in orbit of the sun, but one is not thereby justified in believing such a thing.
Poorly. ... please define
So he just says all arguments that are inconvenient are “not much of an argument.” That’s handy. I don’t really see the purpose of arguing for the existence or non existence of God, since it’s unfalsifiable.
I'm guessing you don't see any arguments for the earth being flat as much of an argument, does that mean it's unfalsifiable and we shouldn't care about it? Well we could do that if everyone believed the earth was round but not everyone believes that. It's the same with God.
How is it unfalsified? If people disproved the the universe of beginning, that would have to disprove the creator of universe. Also if people could show if god is logically impossible that would also falsify.
@@minetime6881 You can’t disprove the existence of a god. That’s common knowledge. Even the most ardent atheists (e.g. Richard Dawkins) agree that there’s always a possibility, but they don’t believe there is evidence of its existence. But as scientists know, the lack of evidence is not evidence of nonexistence. You can never be 100% sure about it, or anything else for that matter. For example, life can be a simulation and everything you’ve ever experienced could be fabricated. You would never be able to know that it is or it isn’t, because all of your data would be potentially compromised. Therefor, questions like this aren’t worth arguing about. Other things are worth arguing about, because they function within the observable universe where predictions can be made. The notion of the existence of a god does not necessarily meet that criteria.
@@j3cruz1 I disagree with Richard Dawkins. If the universe was confirmed to be eternal then that would disprove that there is a God that created one dimensional time at one point (e.i. The current understanding of what the bible says.) Ok, I agree that we can’t be 100% sure of anything (except that at least one thing exists). By falsifiable I mean beyond a reasonable doubt. 99% sure. There are plenty of things we can say would be the case if God exists. We would expect to find a begining. We would expect to find people yearning for something spiritual. We would expect to find a great deal of apparent design in the universe. I would say that’s what we see. I agree that we should not discuss unfalsifiable things in a way as if we could, but I think God fits in the category that he could probably not be proved with certainty, but enough to believe that He probably exists.
Just because one doesn't understand the ways of God, does not mean he doesn't exist. Atheists need to remember this fact. Science and philosophy are the proper realms for debating whether or God exists or not (although I believe they both point to His existence). Proclaiming God doesn't exist because you aren't acquainted for the theological/philosophical reasons why God would allow evil, and therefore don't understand his ways, is not a proper argument.
If God is the God who is eternal, meaning He has no beginning and has no end. If God is over all things, and all things were created by Him, it should be expected that it is impossible for us to understand His reasons for why things are the way they are. To have the view that we if we can not make sense of the "why" of some things, that proves there is no God, is the height of pride. You put yourselves on the same level as God. That is the original lie the Serpent told Eve in the Garden. Their is a faith that Christians have that non-Christians will never understand. 3But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
4In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. And especially 1st Cor. 2:14 "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned". It is not possible for the unsaved natural man to understand what is meant by the term "Christian inner witness".
@nickboettler6025: Science points to the existence of a supernatural entity? The very opposite is in fact the case.
5:22 ... you see even alvin plantinga admits that for god to be omniscient is to be able to do what is only LogicallyPossible.
yes, i see. one of them is that god can't make 1+2=4.
The problem is, that is itself also problematic, I mean, It is “logically possible” to create and infinitely heavy stone/ create something that oneself cannot lift, it is “logically possible” to be infinitely strong/be able to lift anything. The problem arises when you put them together, so the set of “logically possible actions” is a logically inconsistent set. What Platinga would mean is “his powers and nature are logically consistent” , or to put it differently “god can do anything that is not against his nature”. But putting this simplistically, it means “god cannot do what god cannot do”.
And even claiming god is eternally logical pretty weak, the rules of logic are contingent on our universe, they are not special metatruths. So god is bound my rules he is supposed to have created? And even if you dismiss this somehow and for example claim that logic transcends our universe, why would you think that? Why do the laws of logic, which are an inherent part of our universe/world, transcend our world, but the laws of thermodynamics, which are as “true” as the laws of logic, don’t transcend our world? That is just convenient cherrypicking to save their incoherent and inconsistent concept of god.
Every “omni-property” is pretty much nonsense in reality, or at least extremely poorly defined by theists.
What other reasons do you have?
1) The possibility doesn't have to be true, it just has to be possible in order to prove non-contradiction. God could have plenty of reasons to remain hidden.
2) What in particular do you find absurd?
3) Again, the purpose is freely entering into a relationship via love. Knowledge and free will are not sufficient on their own. Actual love cannot be forced. BTW the scripture reference says the demons know and tremble (but the context is discussing faith+acts).
Do you believe?
I wrote this as a response to Karstine Berry below, who commented on pipertripp's top-level comment, but I'll enter my response here also, as a top-level comment (edited by me to remove blank lines:)
Atheists are rational people, and their claim is simply this: if God is transcendent or unknowable in a scientific way, then for all intents and purposes, the claimed entity does not exist, because the entity cannot reproducibly be shown to exist. And by reproducible, I’m referring to the scientific method, a well known and understood process for repeatedly establishing results (with acceptable margins of error, naturally, given that we live in a probabilistic universe.)
Similarly, if God is immanent, and is everywhere present in the universe, then reproducible proof of the entity’s existence is a reasonable expectation, but no such proof exists. Gravity, as a counterexample, is everywhere present in the universe, it abides by certain laws, and all of our investigations into gravity have resulted in reproducible experiments with consistent results. Gravity waves, an effect of gravity, serve as an interesting collateral counterexample - they have only recently been physically proved to exist, whereas the mathematics for the proof of their existence has been available to us since 1915.
Gravity waves bring up an interesting point about the scientific method. Physical proof is different from theoretical proof. Once one accepts the soundness of a theory like General Relativity, then one should - rationally speaking - accept even the most outrageous implications of the theory, like gravity waves, but we still cling to the need for physical proof, as an alternate means of corroboration. Let me be clear in saying that this physical proof is itself very abstract, and is not as cut-and-dried as the dropping of an apple, as in the classic Newtonian anecdote on the discovery of gravity.
So - and the following is critical to the worldview of atheists - the non-existence of a single reproducible proof of a “god” is both sufficient and necessary for the claim that a “god” does not exist. In the event an experiment, or proof that a “god” exists was brought to atheists, then atheist scientists would do what they always do - they would run the experiment many times and in many different configurations, and they would come up with counter-experiments, etc. to challenge assumptions, and prior results and outcomes. If, after all this, the experimental and theoretical proof for the existence of the “god” were shown to be consistently reproducible, then atheists would say - they would be bound to say - that this “god” exists, and is real.
But no such experiment, with the standard rigorous requirements, has yet been devised by those who claim a “god” exists. Until that occurs, it is rationally sound to say: a godlike entity is not known to exist anywhere in the universe. (When “known to exist” is equated with “I can feel god is there”, etc., rational people understand the human tendency to do this, but discard the statement for not being a meaningful argument.)
As for a “god” existing outside the universe, well, given our current theories on the origin of the universe, and on the bounds of human knowledge prior to the birth of the universe, it does not make scientific sense to say we should know something that “exists” outside the bounds of universal existence.
Which brings us back to Transcendence and Immanence. In the case of Transcendence, a “god” in no way touches the physical universe, so claims made by humans that a god at some point did come into the universe to inspire the events that were written in the holy books of the world rules out a Transcendent god: it would imply an Immanent god, but an Immanent material god would be identifiable and knowable to science in the universe, and again no such experiment has been presented by those who claim there is a god.
(Aside: Is it possible that “god” is like gravity waves - which is why I mentioned them - and this entity will be discovered later on? No, because one of the implications of General Relativity is that gravity waves exist, and we have no similar consistent theory for the existence of a god.
Is it possible that “god” is like General Relativity prior to 1905, i.e. not yet known about but a valid theory waiting to be discovered? No, because General Relativity was a response to Newton’s theory of gravity, and thus was built on the foundation of an established, reproducible scientific method of mechanics, whereas no such prior theory and experiment exist in the case of a claim of the existence of a god.
Is it possible that proof of “god” is awaiting an as of yet unknown theory of the universe, as say, was the case for the world 10,000 years ago, prior to the dawn of organized agriculture and society, when science was not yet known? Yes, it is possible, but no more possible than the speculation of the opposite, that no such “as of yet unknown theory” exists, in which case both speculations are equally likely and unlikely at the same time, and neither one is favored over the other as a possible future, and so, statistically, neither one carries any more weight than the other, and in a summation of all possible futures would in each case cancel each other out. Relativity, at least in terms of speculation of its possible existence 10,000 years ago was very much more likely given that it eventually came to be built up from observations in the physical world, whereas an immaterial god requires a completely new system that also would need to interact with systems that we now know do exist, thereby lowering the probability of that likelihood, i.e. in a closed system, a greater number of dependent unknowns lessen the likelihood of an outcome being true, or provable.)
Three final things:
Certainty: science at present considers the universe to be a probabilistic place, and hence “certainty” holds no privileged position there. When something is proved, it is proved to be the case within an acceptable margin of error - the proof does not need to claim X is true 100% of the time. So, in the universe, certainty is not attainable and, hence, is not a meaningful expectation in terms of outcomes in the universe.
Followers of religion often resort to certainty in claim X or in claim Y, and when discussing this with a scientifically trained person there will be immediate disagreement regarding the terms that are being used. In a scientific universe, certainty has no practical meaning. If you ask an atheist whether she or he is certain a god does or does not exist, you are asking that person a meaningless question, as the attribute of “certainty” doesn’t have any meaning for them. The universe, based on all of our experiments, is not made that way, whether we like that attribute or not - it is as it is.
Positive statements: When you say that it is incumbent on atheists to prove that a god does not exist, then no, this is not meaningful in terms of how science works. When something does not exist, it does not exist in an infinite number of ways. When something does exist, it need only be shown to exist as one consistent, reproducible thing. A positive statement, then, is a statement about attribute Y of a known extant entity X; a positive statement is not a statement about non-existence.
So it makes much more logical sense that those who believe in a god prove to atheists that a god exists, as one consistent, reproducible thing. Atheists, in turn, will examine that proof and put it through the same rigorous set of tests that all other proofs require, and should the proof be shown to be true, then atheists will accept that truth, which would, of course, be subject to the usual scientific revision and improvement over time.
Miracles, for example, are sometimes given as proof for the existence of a god; however, the proofs are not reproducible, or the data (aka, “evidence”) is not always consistent, or complete, or meaningful. That is, when a proof does not meet the requirements for the definition of a proof in the scientific sense, then the proof is not a proof at all, and is dismissed.
So, to date, no such scientific proof has been presented to atheists. And, until such proof is presented, there is no data with which a meaningful discussion of the existence of god can be had, which leads atheists to the statement that their confidence in the existence of god, based on data and experiment, is as close to zero as is scientifically meaningful. That is all that is required of atheists to know that a proof for the existence of god has not been responsibly presented to them.
Agnostics: Their logic is flawed, because the statement “insufficient evidence exists” directly claims that “some evidence exists”, and evidence is evidence, and can only be called evidence when it can be used as input to a rigorously verifiable mechanism that is itself logically and scientifically sound.
However, it appears that agnostics equate “insufficient” with “misunderstood” or “supposed”, because either we have some sound data or we do not, and sound data we can work with, without controversy. But that sound evidence, little as it might be to agnostics actually does not exist. Hearsay, superstition, myth, tradition, rumor, etc., all exist, but are not sufficient constituents of scientific data.
Patrick O'Brien all that and one like lol
How you "scientifically" prove God when he's outside the natural world & science studies the natural world?
@@forestvvoods577 Use the "scientific method" to prove that a god exists, and the responsibility for this proof is - first and foremost - in the hands of those who believe in the claim of the existence of the god.
It is not up to people like myself to provide that proof, but should a sound proof be provided, and peer-reviewed by others who understand the scientific method, then yes, that proof would certainly be worth further examination.
Your statement of course is made up of assumptions: that your god is a "he", and that your god exists "outside the natural world." And your statement is made up of contradictions: if your god is outside the natural world, how do you even know anything about such a god? (And don't tell me that "the bible tells me so...", since this is a book written by other humans who are also contained within the natural world.)
And if you say something like "well god sometimes reaches into the natural world and communicates with people" then, clearly your god is NOT "outside the natural world" - part of the god is somehow inside the natural world.
So which is it, fully outside or partly outside?
A different view: is it possible that some super-intelligent life-form created our universe? Yes, it is possible. Is it possible that there are other life-forms within our universe? Yes, it is possible. Is it likely that we humans are somehow special and that a book like the bible links us above all others in the universe to the creators of the universe? No - this is very unlikely. Either all life-forms on this planet, and all life-forms that might exist off this planet are equally important to the experimenters / creators of our universe (the universe is then just another experiment, right?) or no experiment is under way at all: either way, we are not special, and there isn't any "heaven" or "hell" waiting for us. We're just another life-form that has births and deaths, and nothing else, and there's nothing wrong with that.
@@ethancoffey3491 In today's world, you know that what you are saying has value when not a single person likes it. By getting "one like" I have clearly made a mistake somewhere; "no likes" would be, er, more like it.
@@patrickobrien8851 😂😂😂 you snapped on this Patrick, you really did, but let's take for instance love, is there a "scientific" method to conclude it exists or quantify it or the likes? You're free to say it doesn't exist but does that mean it doesn't? Also I didn't say you had to give proof I said if we're doing this scientifically, how would that look like ... And I don't really think you've given me a method or structure since you claim this the is best way to attain God, also prophets communicated with God through visions, dreams etc, or he appeared to them through natural conduits (fire, smoke etc) they weren't him but a channel which he communicates... If you don't believe that, are you willing to say it's possible?
People's fear of hell and bad fortune makes them prefer to believe in a God than to believe in nothing. By believing in a God gives them at least a sliver of hope.
Of course, the sword cuts both ways doesnt it?
I could just as easily dismiss atheists ideas based on some assumed psychological profile.
Thats why these things are best debated without recourse to personal psychology
Every philosophical argument that man has ever posed for the existence of god, fails.
That's interesting. Plantinga did not pose an argument for God's existence in this video.
Danny M
By "man" I meant humanity.
Sagan Worshipper Says you, an admitted idol worshipper.
What's weirder, worshipping a single unified creative intelligence...
Or worshipping a man or created thing?
The answer is obvious.
Yea except my name was created long ago while arguing with a creationist and is an obvious play-on-words because I was called a satan worshipper.
In what way do you think they fail? They seemed to be taken pretty seriously by a large number of people, and they certainly aren't all invalid.
@7:00 CORRECTION Why then do Calvinists ABHOR a model of Jesus Christ that did not die for the sins of the ELECT alone? Why do they hate a Jesus Christ who might have paid for the sins of lost men who will never believe & therefore perish? Why then must God be economically efficient in the matter of Atonement while the naturalist & atheist point our how inefficient God is in His creation?
but if something has to be logically possible in regards to God (he mentions, God cannot create a stone that big that he (an omnipotent being) cannot lift), doesnt that mean that he cannot be God because he is restricted by logic? if logic is a "higher realm" than God, than God by definition is not God.
It's that the so called logically impossibly things aren't actually things at all. They don't have a being, an existent. They're just a mix of words that doesn't refer to anything at all. Imagine a square circle. What is it? So we're not actually saying that there is something that God can't do. It's just our language deluding us into believing that there is something (whether it actually exists in reality or not) called square round.
"[T]o be omnipotent ... is to be able to do what's logically possible [from a perception and reason focused epistemological perspective?]" (5.14 s)
Perhaps we know of no minds other than those embodied by brains, but we also know of God through the embodiment of creation.
Heres's the answer for "Why Evil Exists." Ecclesiastes.1:13 And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that are done under heaven, "This Sore Travail Has GOD Given To The Sons of Man To Be HUMBLED" (Stong's # 6031) mistranslation in the KJV and S/B Humbled. So why does God "Allow Evil"? To humble us and bring us to him. "Repent and Believe the Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven" Is the message. After he did create us in his image to "Know Good and Evil."
that most people believe that god is real doesn't make god real. when people prior to scientific knowledge believed in spirits and magic, didn't make those ideas real
Good thing Plantinga never said that!
the spirit is real.
What's your best reason for believing that & what is a 'spirit' (please don't dodge that question by simply saying what it ISN'T or simply what it DOES).
If you start with the faith you were indoctrinated into then presuppositions like god's existence and the veracity of scripture can be accepted without the slightest hesitation or skeptical thought. Presupposing god exists make it very easy to find evidence for god. If such a being depends on the perception of other minds to exist or not exist then it may be worth simply walking away from the issue altogether. Yahweh? Allah? Hanuman? Vishnu? It is likely that if you belief in one of these gods it is because you were raised into such a belief before you had reason to reject it.
The human mind created the conception of God. So far, all descriptions about its entity is anthropomorphic. The existence of God falls under Belief system. It cannot be argued. So the wise thing to do is to let the faithful live with their Belief and let the science continue to do its job so we all, believers or non-believers, can enjoy the fruits of the scientific investigations. Let both Faith and Science go about their work. Democracy and the rule of law will always try to prevent us to misuse Faith or Science.
I would say this presenter asks all the right questions.thanks to him
No education eh?
On the question about why doesn’t God make Himself known “physically” so that we would believe? It’s not just that we believe God exists, it’s about loving God and wanting to be with God. The scriptures talk about people who believe in God but don’t live like God does exist or want God to exist which is why it says, you say you believe in God, but even the demons believe in God “and obey when God says to do something like leave a person” yet they are going to hell. Why? Because even though they believe in God, they hate God and are against Him and His plan for salvation.
Warranted rejection requires reasons to reject. Rocks are atheists in the same way they "lack belief in God". The semantic game is tiring, I think you can agree. So why don't you tell me where you personally stand on the issue?
and who told u that rocks do not believe in God, how did u make it certain given that u still do not know how the rock is able to hold its atoms together without chaotic scattering
Plantinga is arguing from hypotheticals. In other words, anything is a possibility. But hypotheticals don’t make something real. We should not judge things by some possibility but should instead draw conclusions that can be supported with empirical evidence. Possibly does not make for actuality. Hypotheticals has the tendency to exit the bounds of probability and actuality to imbue the imaginary with authenticity.
You’re missing the point of hypotheticals. They’re not meant to be “real” on their own-they’re tools to explore possibilities, just like how science uses thought experiments to understand things before there’s hard evidence. Plantinga isn’t saying hypotheticals equal reality; he’s showing that belief in God is logically sound. If you reject hypotheticals entirely, you’re cutting off the same reasoning that drives both science and philosophy, which honestly just weakens your stance
Got news for ya… yes, hypotheticals are avenues of potential discovery. But pursuing hypotheticals must always be CONNECTED to physical evidence. Hypotheticals not linked to even the most basic of data is a huge waste of time & resources.
Take Einstein for example. His thought experiment(s) were built upon known laws of physics, But when it comes to theology and the supernatural, there’s no good reason for ANYONE to accept such ideas as fact.
Unless God tell you what the purpose of evil is, the problem of evil is still a problem.
One of the great prophets Moses, said " I set before you today Life and good,Death and Evil.....
Choose Life so that you and your descendants may live." ( Deuteronomy chapter 30 verses 15 and 19).
God is giving mankind a choice of belonging to the evil side or the good and godly side.
One day they shall be no more death or pain or sorrows. For God will wipe away all tears from their eyes. Death will be swallowed up in victory.
And Christ Jesus will reign in a new and perfect earth for a thousand years. The New Millennium.( Book of Revelations)
Until then evil exists and everyone has a choice for God or Satan's side.
God gives us a choice. No one will enter paradise against their own will.
We may not know everything but it is comforting to know one day at the second coming of Christ evil will be defeated completely. Then paradise for the faithful believers. I hope this somehow answer the question. Although I admit some things will remain spiritual mysteries. But we don't need to know everything in order to know that there is eternal life through Christ
Evil is not a mystery, rather God's mercy is the real mystery-- How God turns water into wine, or our lemons into lemonade.
Such an honest man.
Amazing how often Plantinga fllas back on theistic skepticism (we don't know God's motivations) to answer these objections. Yet when theists argue for God, they routinely assume God's motivations.
I don't think one can have it both ways.
Can't see it, hear it, taste it, touch it, hear it, explain it, or reconcile it with what we know... Faith takes a lot of faith.
The level difference between this video and your comment is just...
@@yunisazizli7737 he is hyperbolically paraphrasing I’d say.
His argument is, a concept which is beyond our comprehension (and therefore also cannot be proven or disproven with the means we are equipped with) is of no rational/analytical, only of sentimental use.
Why is there “evil” and “bad things” in our world?? Because we are experiencing the manifestation of what mankind is capable of with our immeasurable minds, our powerful word, and our capable presence, when they are given the authority we have. It’s not that we have “free will”, we do not, however we have been given choices that delude us into this thinking (especially in the western world). We are learning “man’s ways” and when our flesh passes away and we are born into Life, we will have a testimony of the difference between OUR ways (unto “death”) and the Creators Way (unto LIFE for all!😃)…
Does God “allow” it? Yes for that very reason…HIS ways are not the same as our ways. HE is the Father of all Life. We mutilate and try to destroy all of the Life He’s made…just look around. Down to 1% of the created world left in our existence.🤔🤓
0:30 "we don't know there no such thing as a disembodied mind" is a very poor argument for a disembodied mind.
0:35 All the minds we know of are in brains isn't a strong argument for there not being disembodied minds. We know of billions of minds and all of them are in brains, that's pretty strong evidence for minds being dependent on brains or at least something physical.
1:00 That most people believe in god isn't good evidence for god either. Specially when those people vastly different and contradictory things about god (or gods).
1:40 God might have a good reason to be hidden. Another poor argument, God might also have a good reason for not being is just a good of an argument.
2:00 Not believing in god is a cognitive deficiency. Basically an argument of the form "if you don't believe like I do you are crazy". It's bad argument when atheists use it and it's a bad argument when theists use it. It's a bad argument.
2:30 He doesn't counter the problem of evil argument, he didn't even correctly summarize it. It's not the god doesn't have reasons, it's that an all good, all knowing, all powerful creator is logically inconsistent with there being evil in the world.
I've been looking and looking for a good argument for god's existence but once again I've been disappointed.
@7:00 On the matter of efficiency. If we extend the idea of an inefficient or liberal God to the matter of atonement then why could not an inefficient God though Jesus Christ atone for sins that men might never actually commit or persons who may never actually believe & be saved? Why then do Calvinists abhor a model of Jesus Christ who did not die for the sins of the elect? Why do other forms of Christianity abhor a model of Jesus Christ Who only died for sins we actually commit vs sins we could commit with our free will? Does not free will demand that God atone for sins we could have chosen had we made other decisions with our lives? As for inefficiency consider the Sun Moon & Stars which God created. How much energy is being emitted from our sun that will never fall upon the earth? How much light is being emitted from the stars that no eye on earth will ever see? Does not God create all things for His enjoyment & glory and not necessarily for the sake of men or angels?
Soteriology101
Boy are YOU brainwashed with bullshit!!
Whether there's a need for something or that the mind can construct something has no bearing on whether that something exists or not
Does a maximally great being (a being that exists in every possible world) exist in some possible world? Perhaps... Is that a logically acceptable response? Because if it is, then the conclusion doesn't follow. How do we know such a being exists in any possible world?
@@sebastiancandor8680 Perhaps is a yes because it doesn't say no and therefore accepts the possiblity. The only refutation is to show that it isn't possible.
Regarding the timeline of creation stated in Genesis 1 of the Bible, many people think that creation occurred within a 7 "earth-day" period. However, if one reads the actual text of the Bible carefully, it is very clear that the “days” mentioned in Genesis 1 are not referring to the assumed 24-hour earth- days with which we are all accustomed. Because, what is a “day” on earth? Isn’t a "earth-day” the single revolution of the earth around its axis? (By the way, science has shown that the rotation of the earth has not been constant over earth's history. Additionally, every celestial body has a different length for its "day".) According to the Bible, the Earth was not "formed" until the 3rd day of creation. Prior to the 3rd day of creation, the earth was "without form and void". So, how could an "unformed" earth have rotated about its non-existent axis during the first two days of creation to provide a measure of time? Clearly, God was using a different measure of time for a “day” during the “seven days of creation”. In other words, God was not using an “earth-day” as a unit measure of time during creation. To think that God would use an "earth-based time clock" to measure the creation of the universe is akin to the out-dated geocentric belief that the universe revolves around the earth. Even though God is everywhere at all times, God did not have to be "on" earth [Obviously, since the earth had not even been formed until the third "day" of creation.] and therefore not limited by an earthly time frame, when He created the heavens and the earth. (By the way, when was the clock invented? When was the unit measure of time for a second, a minute, an hour, a 24-hour day established? These are all relatively new innovations. So, how could they have measured time at the moment of creation.) God is beyond heaven, earth ... and time.
Be suspicious of anyone who says you have to die before you get to meet their god in person.
I don’t think of God as an individual being but more a property of the universe. Why does evil exist? It doesn’t, it’s just a concept of man.
If 'God' is just 'Reality' then worshiping 'Reality' is just worshiping yourself and ultimately it's just about your own Ego making you feel happy with yourself. In other words there's no god and even if there is it doesn't matter.
We can't see the point of why God would do X, but without a doubt we can be sure about all of his characteristics as long they're the ones we like........
Is evil a problem or the motivation to seek God? How do we recognise what is evil and who is to judge what is evil? Evil or death is the last enemy according to the Christian tradition. Was it not Jesus claiming to be God who did not find equality with God something to be grasped but clothed himself with humility even to death on a cross to be our redeemer from judgement of the evil in the world that we caused and continue to cause?
Who are we to determine what exists and what doesn’t
edit: compared to the magnitude of the universe we are nothing
our opinions do not shape reality
they do shape our perception of reality though, and thats important.
good point
When speaking of the universe (as we know it), I look at the story in the scriptures is strictly for this planet. Because scripture only tells our story.
1:01 that's some excellent ad populum. Nevermind that all of humanity agreed on the fact that the Sun orbited the Earth before the Renaissance, and something like 25% of the population to this day says it takes one month for the Earth to orbit the Sun.
Isn't it weird that belief in God correlates negatively with education and an expertise in science or philosophy Alvin? Isn't it weird that the trend is less people believing in God (and other supersitions) as science infiltrates society? It seems to me that he is a pariah among professional philosophers and that he is an anti-educator and anti-intellectual committed to perpetuating the mistake he was raised with.
We have pretty good naturalistic explanations as to why belief in invisible supermen (note I said widespread, not universal, for there are atheistic religions, and whole atheistic ancient cultures (like the Piraha). Indeed, there were atheists in history before there were christians or jews). The reason is cognitive biases: a cognitive bias to rush answers before satisfactory explanations are found, bias to impute causality over coincidence, bias towards agency over inanimate causes, and a highly-overfitted capacity to detect person-like agents.
In combination, this hierarchy of evolutionarily-ingrained biases makes sure our non-free-willing minds often can't help themselves think they detect invisible super-persons as the explanation for everything. (On a side note, I love how much this fact suits with Plantinga's firebrand bubble-head argument against reliance on our naturally evolved cognitive capacities). Fortunately, exposure to reason and science is the cure that allows us to take the best bits of our highly-flawed brain and potentiate them. The history after the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution are testament to their unique epistemic effectivity.
That's not ad populum you uneducated sophomore. He does not say that because many people believe it it's true.
@@suntzu7727 Indeed.
Flying monk don't mind him, he has lots of things to learn ahead of him, he is still young.
Only a conscious, capable, and intelligent being can "hide."
Ask Willy Craig these questions..
What exactly are you implying?
They say the devil is in the details, but actually God is in the details. Who reads the small print of the contract, not many, and its the same spiritually. Gods contract is His word.
A summary:it be like it be.
Theists keep their definitions vague and loose enough to change them every time they generate contraddictions. Like Plantinga did with the concept of "omnipotence", which he redefined (from the classical notion of being able to do "any all thing" into just being able to do "everything that's LOGICALLY POSSIBLE") just to bypass the paradox of logics that the old concept creates (4:40).
...and by the way: claiming that god's power are limited to what is 'logically' possible, would mean that logics is superior to him, therefore he wouldn't be actually omnipotent.
His argument against Freud was weak.
Belief is a factor of conditioned awareness. "God" is a metaphor for that which __.
One of the biggest hindrances to thinking about divinity is the fact that we conceptualise God as different from our everyday awareness. God then, becomes just another ideological prop to accept or dismiss, rather than a useful cognitive tool for relating to the mystery of being. Most religionists are like children trying to describe existence through infantile philosophical sketches. The more immature clumsiness leads to all sorts of contradictions between them and obfuscates any clear insight into divinity by one approaching the subject rationally. Few theologians make coherent and robust arguments for divinity because of these poor models, especially in the Christian tradition.
The truth is within you, beyond words and it takes one hell of a mind to use them to make sense of divinity on a philosophical basis. Advaitin theologians have the most refined and subtle arguments for divinity, few Christian thinkers can hold a candle to them. There are of course exceptions: Peter Rollins, Francis Xavier Clooney--these names among the living come to mind. Pleased to learn about this man and grateful for this interview. His point of view is well appreciated.
Check out Ravi Zacharias and John Lennox.
I think the real issue here is that this is being argued in a backwards fashion. Kuhn really should have asked Plantinga to present his case. The arguments against are being treated as positive claims and those are easy to refute with almost any statement b/c you really can't prove the negative claim.
The way this should be argued is that Plantinga needs to make his positive claim and then back it up with evidence. He needs to justify his claim of an omnipotent, omniscient being with proper evidence. In the end he needs to show, with evidence, why his claim is true and the default position (atheism in this case) is not justified. He didn't do this in the interview, but that's not entirely his fault because he spent the entire time focused on refuting positive claims.
An atheist who claims that God dos not exist , makes a positive claim...and needs to provide positive evidence for that claim.To understand this,one needs to be able to drop the tunnel reasoning that is the hall mark of atheism.Atheism IS A BELIEF..Sadly, atheists do not even know this.
@@karstineberry5639 What about agnosticism?
@@mikeguliano3159 Agnosticism is the assertion that one does not have sufficient evidence to either (1) Believe God exists or (2) Believe God does not exist.
Basically, agnosticism is the belief that one cannot adopt one belief or the other
@@karstineberry5639: (edited to remove blank lines.)
Atheists are rational people, and their claim is simply this: if God is transcendent or unknowable in a scientific way, then for all intents and purposes, the claimed entity does not exist, because the entity cannot reproducibly be shown to exist. And by reproducible, I’m referring to the scientific method, a well known and understood process for repeatedly establishing results (with acceptable margins of error, naturally, given that we live in a probabilistic universe.)
Similarly, if God is immanent, and is everywhere present in the universe, then reproducible proof of the entity’s existence is a reasonable expectation, but no such proof exists. Gravity, as a counterexample, is everywhere present in the universe, it abides by certain laws, and all of our investigations into gravity have resulted in reproducible experiments with consistent results. Gravity waves, an effect of gravity, serve as an interesting collateral counterexample - they have only recently been physically proved to exist, whereas the mathematics for the proof of their existence has been available to us since 1915.
Gravity waves bring up an interesting point about the scientific method. Physical proof is different from theoretical proof. Once one accepts the soundness of a theory like General Relativity, then one should - rationally speaking - accept even the most outrageous implications of the theory, like gravity waves, but we still cling to the need for physical proof, as an alternate means of corroboration. Let me be clear in saying that this physical proof is itself very abstract, and is not as cut-and-dried as the dropping of an apple, as in the classic Newtonian anecdote on the discovery of gravity.
So - and the following is critical to the worldview of atheists - the non-existence of a single reproducible proof of a “god” is both sufficient and necessary for the claim that a “god” does not exist. In the event an experiment, or proof that a “god” exists was brought to atheists, then atheist scientists would do what they always do - they would run the experiment many times and in many different configurations, and they would come up with counter-experiments, etc. to challenge assumptions, and prior results and outcomes. If, after all this, the experimental and theoretical proof for the existence of the “god” were shown to be consistently reproducible, then atheists would say - they would be bound to say - that this “god” exists, and is real.
But no such experiment, with the standard rigorous requirements, has yet been devised by those who claim a “god” exists. Until that occurs, it is rationally sound to say: a godlike entity is not known to exist anywhere in the universe. (When “known to exist” is equated with “I can feel god is there”, etc., rational people understand the human tendency to do this, but discard the statement for not being a meaningful argument.)
As for a “god” existing outside the universe, well, given our current theories on the origin of the universe, and on the bounds of human knowledge prior to the birth of the universe, it does not make scientific sense to say we should know something that “exists” outside the bounds of universal existence.
Which brings us back to Transcendence and Immanence. In the case of Transcendence, a “god” in no way touches the physical universe, so claims made by humans that a god at some point did come into the universe to inspire the events that were written in the holy books of the world rules out a Transcendent god: it would imply an Immanent god, but an Immanent material god would be identifiable and knowable to science in the universe, and again no such experiment has been presented by those who claim there is a god.
(Aside: Is it possible that “god” is like gravity waves - which is why I mentioned them - and this entity will be discovered later on? No, because one of the implications of General Relativity is that gravity waves exist, and we have no similar consistent theory for the existence of a god.
Is it possible that “god” is like General Relativity prior to 1905, i.e. not yet known about but a valid theory waiting to be discovered? No, because General Relativity was a response to Newton’s theory of gravity, and thus was built on the foundation of an established, reproducible scientific method of mechanics, whereas no such prior theory and experiment exist in the case of a claim of the existence of a god.
Is it possible that proof of “god” is awaiting an as of yet unknown theory of the universe, as say, was the case for the world 10,000 years ago, prior to the dawn of organized agriculture and society, when science was not yet known? Yes, it is possible, but no more possible than the speculation of the opposite, that no such “as of yet unknown theory” exists, in which case both speculations are equally likely and unlikely at the same time, and neither one is favored over the other as a possible future, and so, statistically, neither one carries any more weight than the other, and in a summation of all possible futures would in each case cancel each other out. Relativity, at least in terms of speculation of its possible existence 10,000 years ago was very much more likely given that it eventually came to be built up from observations in the physical world, whereas an immaterial god requires a completely new system that also would need to interact with systems that we now know do exist, thereby lowering the probability of that likelihood, i.e. in a closed system, a greater number of dependent unknowns lessen the likelihood of an outcome being true, or provable.)
Three final things:
Certainty: science at present considers the universe to be a probabilistic place, and hence “certainty” holds no privileged position there. When something is proved, it is proved to be the case within an acceptable margin of error - the proof does not need to claim X is true 100% of the time. So, in the universe, certainty is not attainable and, hence, is not a meaningful expectation in terms of outcomes in the universe.
Followers of religion often resort to certainty in claim X or in claim Y, and when discussing this with a scientifically trained person there will be immediate disagreement regarding the terms that are being used. In a scientific universe, certainty has no practical meaning. If you ask an atheist whether she or he is certain a god does or does not exist, you are asking that person a meaningless question, as the attribute of “certainty” doesn’t have any meaning for them. The universe, based on all of our experiments, is not made that way, whether we like that attribute or not - it is as it is.
Positive statements: When you say that it is incumbent on atheists to prove that a god does not exist, then no, this is not meaningful in terms of how science works. When something does not exist, it does not exist in an infinite number of ways. When something does exist, it need only be shown to exist as one consistent, reproducible thing. A positive statement, then, is a statement about attribute Y of a known extant entity X; a positive statement is not a statement about non-existence.
So it makes much more logical sense that those who believe in a god prove to atheists that a god exists, as one consistent, reproducible thing. Atheists, in turn, will examine that proof and put it through the same rigorous set of tests that all other proofs require, and should the proof be shown to be true, then atheists will accept that truth, which would, of course, be subject to the usual scientific revision and improvement over time.
Miracles, for example, are sometimes given as proof for the existence of a god; however, the proofs are not reproducible, or the data (aka, “evidence”) is not always consistent, or complete, or meaningful. That is, when a proof does not meet the requirements for the definition of a proof in the scientific sense, then the proof is not a proof at all, and is dismissed.
So, to date, no such scientific proof has been presented to atheists. And, until such proof is presented, there is no data with which a meaningful discussion of the existence of god can be had, which leads atheists to the statement that their confidence in the existence of god, based on data and experiment, is as close to zero as is scientifically meaningful. That is all that is required of atheists to know that a proof for the existence of god has not been responsibly presented to them.
Agnostics: Their logic is flawed, because the statement “insufficient evidence exists” directly claims that “some evidence exists”, and evidence is evidence, and can only be called evidence when it can be used as input to a rigorously verifiable mechanism that is itself logically and scientifically sound.
However, it appears that agnostics equate “insufficient” with “misunderstood” or “supposed”, because either we have some sound data or we do not, and sound data we can work with, without controversy. But that sound evidence, little as it might be to agnostics actually does not exist. Hearsay, superstition, myth, tradition, rumor, etc., all exist, but are not sufficient constituents of scientific data.
@@patrickobrien8851 I must start by stating that I speak for " belief in The God of The Christian Bible" , and all those outrageous , supernatural claims for which The Christian Bible is unique.Now that I have circumscribed my field, you may choose to continue in this discussion.
Atheists must at the least, consider the possibility of a Spiritual, non-physical universe, in which/for which the scientific method( great as it is) , is completely useless.
For one to obstinately stick with the material universe (exclusively), and demand that supernatural claims about Supernatural Beings be... " brought to the atheist" , reveals many unpleasant things.I list just two, below:
1.) Atheists are unwilling to roll up their sleeves, and actually go out in search of evidences, what ever it takes and where-ever the quest may lead them.
It would appear some have never done any experiment(scientific or not) of their own.They would rather just interpret discoveries by other people, using philosophy/logic that is skewed by their world view/presuppositions.
2.) Atheists have never really understood their own very mantra of " Extraordinary claims call for extraordinary evidence".
The claims of the Christian Bible can be proven...but not by scientific methods, because , these are not natural/normal claims about natural/physical beings(realities).The Scientific Method does not apply in this situation.And yes, it is a completely different set of circumstances that greatly influence the physical universe, but are spiritual and completely different.
For proof of God of The Christian Bible, follow the prescription in John 14:21 .Just remember that it is an individual endeavor. Each person has to follow the proscribed policies and procedures ( for THEMSELVES) ...As many people arrive at the the same conclusion that there is indeed a God as portrayed in The Christian Bible, this will be your confirmation that the procedure is reproducible( you seem to like that criterion)
This very simple process has been repeated by every single true believer in The God of the Christian Bible.It really doesn't get any more corroborated than that!
Biblical Christianity is a very simple thing to prove.In fact God designed it that way, so that we do not need years of special training, nether do we need some one else to prove it and post it on You Tube...Some times atheists insinuate that madness.
Further more, Biblical Christianity is very intellectual,It is not blind faith.,The true Christian is a satisfied skeptic, not a blind believer.Just remember :
There are thousands of religions out there, but only one true religion.
There are millions of gods( the Hindi alone have 33 million) , but only one God.
There are billions of worshipers, and > 2 billion professing Christians, but sadly, far fewer true Christians.
Please, try not to get confused.Stay focused on one of them, at a time.Take my Biblical God for example, and go for Him, okay?
Patrick O'Brian, may be you can to tell me this; Why is it that atheists who decline to take the John 14:21 challenge either because they never knew about it, or...they just elected not to(for what ever reason)...why do they think that Christians must " bring some proof of the atheist's choosing... to The Almighty Atheist "?
I mean, think about it for a moment, will you?The Christian Bible claims that The Salvation Package is like a treasure , which a man discovers in a field.He sells everything to purchase this field.So why should I bother taking my hard-earned proof, to an atheists?Did you know that I do not have to present any proselyte in order to gain admission into heaven,?
I will suggest that before you attempt to dismiss any claims made in the Christian Bible, first familiarize yourself with what the Christian Bible actually says.
How ever, if you are just interested in arguing about the (non-) existence of some generic god, then you have come to the wrong person.I cannot help you with that exercise.
2/2:
Even if "it" carries a depersonalizing connotation (in English, by which God is evidently constrained), surely "he" also has its own baggage, which God seems eager to reinforce. God is a "father" who fixates on patriarchal bloodlines (through which sin can be passed, which also seems to depersonalize our relationships with God).
(Again, I'm intentionally sticking with Platinga's presumed God, not others. Talking about all possible gods would be like trying to nail J-ello to a wall.)
I have just one question: What is God? can you at least define it before arguing it's existence? I've seen many videos in this channel about this and you people talk as if it was a well defined concept, which is not.
That's part of the trick: they keep their definitions vague and loose enough to change them every time they generate contraddictions. Like Plantinga did with the concept of "omnipotence", which he redefined (from the classical notion of being able to do "any all thing" into just being able to do "everything that's LOGICALLY POSSIBLE") just to bypass the paradox of logics that the old concept creates (4:40).
...and by the way: claiming that god's power are limited to what is 'logically' possible, would mean that logics is superior to him.
***** "He can't violate his nature"
Therefore he's not all powerful. Every time theists define in a less vague way their alleged 'deity' some new contraddiction emerges.
By the way: If you're talking about the mass murdering god described in the bible, I won't say that he's good, nor that he acts in a logical way.
***** "Do you understand what "perfect" means?"
It's just a term created by human minds. like omnipotence, omniscience, etc... The point is that similar concepts generate many contraddictions, like the ones pointed out in this same video. My original comment is exactly about this: those concepts create obvious logical contraddictions, and religious apologists dishonestly change the definitions of their 'god' just to fix those contraddictions.
In other words: they're not even able to give us a coherent definition of their alleged deity ...let alone giving a shred of evidence about his existence! ;-)
"Like I said more dead babies done by humans than by God in the OT"
I could play your same 'show me the statistics' game, but that's not necessary, since even if we admit that man made aborts are more than the murdering made by your god in the bible (which i sincerely doubt about, since in Noah's times he killed every single form of life on the planet, excepting the very few ones on the arch), your god would always be the INDIVIDUAL killer with the highest murdering record in history (and quite ironically that's just in his 'Holy book').
In any case: did you know that the most of abortions are the spontaneous ones? In other words: the ones which your god operates by himself, without any intervention from human will.
rationalwiki.org/wiki/Spontaneous_abortion_in_humans
Not only YOUR GOD IS the greatest killer that human history has ever known, but he's EVEN THE GREATEST ABORTIONIST! :D
Jonathan Carreño "G"od is the greatest conceivable being. Think of an alien race that has more power, knowledge, presense and morally superiority than we do. Now think of an alien race that is better than that, then do it again, again and again. you will end up with an alien race that is perfect in power, knowledge, presence and morality (Great making properties). This is just a concept in order for it to exist you have to find someone claiming to be this being and compare the concept to the claim.
Plantinga did not argue for God's existence in this video.
1) What colossal evidence?
2) Examples?
3) Your knowledge-defeating-free-will argument is good (and shows that omniscience is compatible with free will) but I pointed out free will is only half of the formula, in that sense. Christianity believes God desires all men to be saved but that He purposes they enter into a relationship with Him freely via love. Entering via love cannot be forced via knowledge. Is it still unclear?
Cameron Bertuzzi
Free will is a myth.
After listening to all of this, I'm pretty sure that we can't currently know whether Cthulu is asleep.
It is fascinating to me that throughout the entire conversation, nothing necessitates any specific religion's claimed deity -- it could as easily describe the Muslim God or the Mormon God or the Jewish God or the Hindu God.
Or it could describe the Creator as envisioned in Pandeism....
You're right since Alvin Plantinga wasn't attempting to describe any specific God belonging to a specific religion.
The purpose of this clip was to address potential objections raised against the existence of a generic God. Given the purpose, it shouldn't really shock anyone that no description of God was given to support a specific religion.
@@jimlee4698 Works for Pandeism, too. Blessings!!
Also works for the one true God Shivakamini Somakandarkram
That's not even the point of what he's saying, I don't know how atheists are tired of using that horrible worn-out argument.
A maximally great being would have true scriptures, if it needed such things to convey its message in the first place. So let us do a little bible study:
*Matthew 17;20* _NIV_
*20* _He replied, "Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."_
*matthew 18;19-20* _NIV_
*19* _“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven._ *20* _For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”_
*Matthew 21;21-22* _NIV_
*21* _Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done._ *22* _If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”_
*Mark 11;23-24* _NIV_
*23* _“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them._ *24* _Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours._
*John 14;12-14* _NIV_
*12* _Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father._ *13* _And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son._ *14* _You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it._
All of these scriptures from your bible say _"Truly I tell you."_ They are all supposedly quotes from a demigod that couldn't lie like a normal person, and since _"Truly"_ means "In accordance with fact" and it does not mean "Symbolically" or "Metaphorically" or "Allegorically" we should be able to trust what they say.
matthew 17;20 puts a limit on these scriptures: *Faith.* I posit that if you believe in any of the supernatural occurrences detailed in the christian bible, you have plenty of faith. I posit that if you believe that an obviously fictional, obviously evil being as yahweh is both real and good, based on your faith, you have more faith than you'll ever need to do what comes next.
These scriptures would indicate (To anyone reading them with a shred of honesty) that prayer _always_ works:
_“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven."_
_"If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”_
_"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."_
_"You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it."_
They also indicate that prayer can accomplish the impossible:
_"Nothing will be impossible for you."_
_“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them."_
If these were the words of a maximally great being's demigod, they should be true, so let us test prayer:
1: Grab a christian friend _(“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.")_ and a video camera.
2: Find an amputee.
3: Turn on the camera.
4: Both of you -Wish upon a star- Pray that this amputee regrows their lost limb/s. Be sure to pray in the name of your demigod. _(Very truly I tell you… You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.)_
I posit that a maximally great being would re-grow an amputee's lost limbs when petitioned to do so, because helping people is greater than not helping them, and a real, functioning, natural limb is greater than any prosthetic made by men.
Any _excuse_ or _dodge_ is your admission that your god will not restore that poor amputee, and thus is not maximally great, and therefor does not have to exist.
It would also be an admission that your demigod is either a liar that hates amputees, or (more likely) it never existed in the first place.
Good luck, christians!
I didn’t quite understand his rebut argument for the evil part. 3:8
Can someone please explain to me what he is saying ?
My best summary is: How does the mere existence of evil prove God doesn't exist? Also, how does it show that he doesn't have a good reason for it existing?
He answers with a question, because it's really up to an atheist to prove that the existence of evil implies there is no good God.
As a Catholic Christian, I find it easy to understand that God gave us free choice from the beginning of our race. That choice has led our first ancestors (called Adam and Eve in the allegory of creation) to choose their own evil desires over God's desires, and that choice influenced everyone descended from them. That's "original sin." That brought all suffering/evil into the world. God did not directly cause it, but He did allow our choices to bring evil into His creation.
Greg thank you so much 🙏🏼 for your explanation it really helps me a lot 👍🏼
What he is saying basically boils down to "God moves in mysterious ways".
@michael o'grady - You are asking me to explain the universe. My honest answer: I don't know. Even the experts don't know all the answers concerning the universe. And they maybe never will. I can live with that. But saying 'we don't know exactly how the universe as we know it came to be, so God made it' is an argument from ignorance. As I said earlier: The existence of the universe itself is not proof of 'God' or 'gods'. You should first come up with better (that is positive) evidence for deities in general. Only after that we can have a meaningful conversation about their role in the (making of the) universe.
LOL You can not like the argument but is powerful for the universe to exist we need to posit either an incredibly powerful agent and/or one incredible act of miracle that moves away from chaos to "beginning" of universe. So the existence of universe IS evidence of SOME kind of agent or event - whether we call it God is open to question but all the models show no promise if explaining why the universe exists except by just saying it happened. Where is the flaw in the argument of Alvin's? I don't see any.
* Not only are we not aware of any minds that do not come from a brain but physics as we currently understand it seems to preclude such a thing from even being possible at all.
* Lumping all theists together is disingenuous as the worlds theists disagree with each other sometimes to the point of violence because they believe in very different gods.
* Arguing that people who disagree with you are mentally deficient is an ad hominem fallacy.
* problem of evil, he really didn't say anything.
* Limiting god's power to what's logically possible is just moving the goalposts. Based on what they say its also not what most Christians actually believe.
* The Inefficiency bit is again saying nothing.
* Our tendency to project human like characteristics onto the environment around us is pretty well established. And we have this tendency because we are a social species and our brains evolved to put interactions with other humans front and center. This leads us to want to expalin things that happen, as being willed by some agent hence we start believing in spirits and eventually gods.
from a photon to the overwhelming expanse of universe, an atheist's blind heart can not see His signs just as he can not tell us (out of scientific discovery) wherefrom all this came, nor has an atheist scientist been able so far to CREATE a photon out of nothing.
That's neither an argument against atheism nor an argument for theism. Your comment doesn't really bring anything to the table.
I see you speak jibberish.
In other words, people disbelieve in the god they have created. They reject the one true God by creating a god who embodies limmitations & faults.
I was expecting a perspective affirming life's spiritual dimensions...
:-/
Actually all are agnostic, theist or atheist.
God is the one who introduced sin into the world....then condemns the sinner...this is drivel and bs......
And why is god considered a he? This guy is not arguing anything....he is being dismissive.
No, he did not introduce sin into the world. To sin means „to miss the target“, in other words to reject God and disobey him. Rejecting a maximally great being means to reject goodness itself in some form which is what the first man did. All God dis was give him the ability to make a choice.
As for why God is considered a he, he doesn't exactly have a gender. He is given that pronoun simply because it is more fitting for him. But sometimes he's also described through feminine metaphors, like mother bear protecting her cubs.
I think evil is a product of us having free choice to choose God or reject him, which in itself comes by love.love needs to be chosen not forced to choose we need an option and all choices have consequence thus evil
Can see how Alvin Plantinga just repels all these arrows like a giant brick wall. That's amazing considering the context in which he has brought God back into the scene in his time where positivism and these atheistic presuppositions were all the rage.
In an effort to keep the discussion manageable (on YT), let's stick to hiddenness for now (but first a little on omniscience).
From the fact that God foreknows He will do X, you can be sure that X will happen. But it doesn’t follow that it will happen necessarily. It could fail to happen, but it won’t. If it were to fail to happen, then God wouldn’t have foreknown X. His foreknowing it doesn’t determine it or render it necessary.
On hiddenness, see next comment.
CAmeron Bertuzzi
Or there is no god and you're blabbering cult nonsense.
Jesus is risen..get over it
Never happened.
Complete BS
He did rise from the dead the evidence would disagree with u
@@Lamster66 actually that's not true according to most historians even atheists the story of Jesus resurrection is quite unique to him those stories that you bring up were added much later take Odin for instance Odin was out in hundreds of years after Jesus. The only resurrection that some Scholars debate about is baal from the Canaanite religion. But even then it wasn't really a resurrection I want to come to Jesus's resurrection is very unique. So yes those myths you think this proves Jesus actually don't do added much later to pagan gods and even Egyptian historians Indian historians Greek historians all agree that those myths were added much later on. You've been watching you can watch a TH-camr called inspiringphilosophy he has a whole playlist dedicated to it.
@@Lamster66 how is it a good laugh what makes a laughing joke it's quite a serious topic grow up. Anyway Jesus to resurrect Resurrection story for Jesus was quite unique of the time you bring up how other gods resurrected well sorry to burst your bubble but that's not fully true those lips were added much later on according to most historians Egyptian Scholars who study people like Osiris raw the Egyptian gods have stated multiple times that Osiris did not resurrect nor was there no virgin birth it's a raping story. Jesus very unique according to the use of his time in the Messiah was supposed to die obviously if you read the scriptures like Paul and Matthew and all them did you understand that he did I was supposed to why did Paul and Matthew quote the Old Testament so often. Also would make any sense in them to make up a resurrection they're beaten horribly everyone was Paul was Shipwrecked for days he was beat with a Roman flag of a Taurus skin apart use cast to see four days thrown in prison we know that actually happened to Paul there's no story who doubt any of that. Also his resurrection would make sense if they lied and of course the evidence in Wind sound like they were lying Apostle consignee misunderstood Jesus and he even told about the resurrection even Paul saw Jesus went back in the old scriptures and found properties what he supposed to die and resurrect people say Isaiah 53 does not mean Messiah but it does consignee Isaiah says he will take our sins his burden he is a lamb and even Asian Jews believe that was that Isaiah 53 I can get in the more detail if you want about how Jesus did resurrect
Okay, God "EXISTS" but if so, then what the hell is he made of? Because if he's not made of something then he's no-thing and can't exist! What is Good made of?
Man does this guy know the truth that God has given us. God bless Him
All he says is that we can't disprove the existence of god because we have no idea of what god would look like.
Watched for four minutes and I find that it was most wasteful of my time.
This life is a test, human beings are given a certain amount of free will that is the tendency to do good and evil on the basis of which they will be judged.
God also has free will yet he did his part, human beings have to do their part the right way and that is what the test is...
This guy came highly touted and he has nothing. On top of that he totally switches the burden of proof and the interviewer doesn't challenge it. I'll take Tielhard as at least to be taken seriously.
Plantinga is a classic example of an emperor with no clothes.
What's interesting is that so many people almost a decade ago were impressed by the mental masturbation of Plantinga. Now more and more people see it for the irrational and illogical nonsense that it is.
The same sentence but we have faith, follow one and fear,deny the other only because of a name change that doesn't make sense
this video just blew my mind
If you passively offer up the touch paper and the match, then that's a pretty inevitable result.
The ability to make a choice inherently comes with the ability to make the wrong choice
Why don't I have the choice to teleport to Paris for Breakfast?
Konrad Zielinski maybe because you’re not trying hard enough
@@KonradZielinski you do not possess the faculties to do so
I think that by posing the questions as "What do the arguments against God get wrong?" the interviewer framed the issue as a false dichotomy. Moreover, I think some of his questions were directed at topics that are often met with arguments from ignorance (i.e., a God of the Gaps)... not that I've heard any "pro-God" arguments I think have merit.
It's not that "there is no such thing as a disembodied mind". Instead it's "Disembodied mind" is like "the taste of blue". It doesn't make a lick of sense. It's just words put together.
the reality is a lot of people don’t want god to exist. We don’t want an authority over us. Is it reasonable to not believe in god, of course. But if you are truly honest with yourself and listen to the rational logical arguments you should come to possible conclusion he exists, whether you want it to be true or not. All the atheist comments seem to be angry bitter people who won’t listen to any argument because they don’t want god to exist.
It's true, I do in fact believe that Sigmar exists and I'm glad you agree. Can't believe that people still act as if this 'Yahweh' fella is real. Haha
I think I've responded to both of those points elsewhere, so I'll let those threads continue separately (if at all) rather than duplicating them here.
Aside from that, I apologize for the "genius" comment and any other obnoxiousness. I too was a bit put off by your tone, but that's a poor excuse. In any case, much of it seems to have arisen from misunderstanding. I think we generally agree or, as you have suggested, see the other's point or intent.
Plantinga is often put forward as an example of a philosophically respectable religious believer, one whose arguments represent the best that theistic apologetics has to offer. I'm writing this out just to remind myself that that's the case, because the video above, and the arguments made by Plantinga therein, are so startlingly weak and lazy it's difficult to believe that this is the same person.
You have to keep reminding yourself that this is a professional philosopher - the surreal mixture of special pleading, appeals to mystery and clumsy leaps from conjecture to certainty is so shockingly poor an attempt at religious rationalisation that my final reaction was not even disappointment: it was puzzlement. The 'sensus divinitatis' argument in particular is so odd I do wonder whether Plantinga was being entirely serious when he made it.
In the swirl of dreadful arguments the only one that was merely 'debatable', as opposed to 'worthless', or 'bizarre', was the refutation of the argument from the contradiction of omnipotence, in which Plantinga makes the reasonable point that God is incapable of the logically contradictory. In terms of credible arguments that really is it. The rest is stunningly poor.
As an agnostic atheist I clearly am not convinced by any of the religious arguments for God's existence, but I can at least recognise when an apologist makes the best of what is available to him. Whether or not you enjoy it, it's generally a good thing, a healthy thing, to have to deal with your opponent's best case. This video, on the other hand, was bafflingly poor. Deeply disappointing and ever-so-slightly surreal.
The Sprawl Plantinga goes into a lot more detail and formal analysis in his academic papers and books, so i think it's safe to assume that the format of the interview contributes to the somewhat incomplete and rudimentary explanations. Moreover, there may be an assumption that such interviews are to be watched mainly by people with varying backgrounds, many of whom may not have had preparation in formal/modal logic, so while it would be interesting to see him at his best, it might prove to be unintelligible even for people that are interested in philosophy of religion.
Don't you think it would make more sense to base your opinion on him if you read one of his books instead of watching a 12 minute video that is not at all meant to be an in depth explication of his views?
Since any semi-literate moron can post anything without any consequence these days I'll spell it out for you. Not all theologians agree with Plantinga's concept of God. However, almost all respect the fact that he is an impeccable logician and that there are only a handful of people in the world that can do more than just sweat it out with him in a debate using analytic philosophy.
His philosophical argument where he defends darwinian evolution and uses it as an argument against metaphysical naturalism is original and brilliant, and has been praised even by several atheists with more than rudimentary training in philosophy.
Tracchofyre
I think almost all working philosophers would be very surprised to learn that metaphysical realism is dead. No doubt in its naive forms it has been found wanting, but almost all forms of "metaphysical" anti-realism or instrumentalism are viewed as ultimately irrational and self defeating, no matter how fancy the rhetoric is. The idea that "realism" in any form is dead is a pernicious postmodern myth.
Tracchofyre
I also find it strange that you bring up Kuhn as bringing about the death of metaphysical realism. Outside of Philosophy of Science, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is not taken very seriously. (It's not even well known to philosophers outside that very particular and specific discipline). It is an influential work that has contributed to the decline of naive forms of realism in the philosophy of science. Kuhn himself would not be so audacious to claim that it did anything more than that.
To be honest, those who show disrespect for people by being derisive of the opinions, and without a sincere and respect for the time required for depth to be achieved, should please think again before judging this comment. Because we are not here to have the right answer. If we had a right answer and knew with certainty of its correctness, then nobody would be questioning these things.
It takes a really large ego to think that God's existence has been disproved after millenia of philosophical debate from all philosophical traditions which has not yet led to complete consensus. Call me whatever names helps you to justify your distaste for God in your own mind - that will never solve the suffering you feel from the inner frustration brought about by the word 'God'...
David Spades Well. Isn't that the point? It often way easier to destroy someone's arguments than to prove them. Especially when you can't know the answer. Easy example : Nobody knows how many stars there is in the whole universe( not only the observable one). But I can easily know that if someone is saying ''there is no star'' that he is clearly wrong. The fact that you can't know how many stars there is doesn't prevent you to know that this person has the wrong answer. Available informations, although insufficient to know the answer, is sufficient to destroy his answer. Now, if you're waiting for a consensus about God, good luck...
David Spades Well. Isn't that the point? It often way easier to destroy someone's arguments than to prove them. Especially when you can't know the answer. Easy example : Nobody knows how many stars there is in the whole universe( not only the observable one). But I can easily know that if someone is saying ''there is no star'' that he is clearly wrong. The fact that you can't know how many stars there is doesn't prevent you to know that this person has the wrong answer. Available informations, although insufficient to know the answer, is sufficient to destroy his answer. Now, if you're waiting for a consensus about God, good luck...